TRATEO 


SKETCHES   IN   CRUDE-OIL 


C KETCHES  IN 
°     CRUDE-OIL 


SOME  ACCIDENTS  AND  INCIDENTS  OF   THE  PETROLEUM 

DEVELOPMENT  IN  ALL  PARTS  OF 

THE  GLOBE 


BY   JOHN    J.    McLAURIN 

Author  of  "A  Brief  History  of  Petroleum,"  "The  Story  of 
Johnstown,"  etc. 


"If  will  a  rounb,  unvarnfsbeti  tale  Z>eliver." — Shakespeare 


HARRISBURG,  PA. 
PUBLISHED  BY  THE  AUTHOR 

1896 


COPYRIGHTED,  1896,  BY 
JOHN  J.  MCLAURIN 


BY  J.  HORACE  MCFARLAND  COMPANY 


TrwvJ  />\JUuy\Jj^A^Tf^^  V"**' 

^5< 
[JON. 

!l  ' 


(v) 


Many  of  the  illttstrations  and  portraits 
in  ibis  volume  are  from  photographs  by  John 
A.  Matbtr,  Titusville,  Pa 


INTRODUCTION 

T  IFE  is  too  short  to  compile  a  book  that  would 
i-^  cover  the  subject  fully,  hence  this  work  is  not  a 
detailed  history  of  the  great  petroleum  development. 
Nor  is  it  a  mere  collection  of  dry  facts  and  figures, 
set  forth  to  show  that  the  oil  business  is  a  pretty  big 
enterprise.  But  it  is  a  sincere  endeavor  to  print 
something  regarding  petroleum,  based  largely  upon 
personal  observation,  which  may  be  worth  saving 
from  oblivion.  The  purpose  is  to  give  the  busy  out- 
side world,  by  anecdote  and  incident  and  brief  narra- 
tion, a  glimpse  of  the  grandest  industry  of  the  ages 
and  of  the  men  chiefly  responsible  for  its  origin  and 
growth.  Many  of  the  portraits  and  illustrations, 
nearly  all  of  them  now  presented  for  the  first  time, 
will  be  valuable  mementoes  of  individuals  and  locali- 
ties that  have  passed  from  mortal  sight  forever.  If 
the  reader  shall  find  that  "within  is  more  of  relish 
than  of  cost"  the  writer  of  these  "Sketches"  will 
be  amply  satisfied. 


(vii) 


PORTRAITS. 


Name     .                               P 
ABBOTT,  WILLIAM  H.  .   .  . 
ADAMS,  REV.  CLARENCE  A. 
ALLEN,  COL.  M.  N  
AMES,  Gov.  OLIVER       .   . 
ANDERSON,  GEORGE  K.  .  . 
ANDREWS,  CHARLES  J.  .   . 
ANDREWS,  FRANK  W.    .  . 
ANDREWS,  WILLIAM  H..  . 
ANGELL,  CYRUS  D.  .  . 
ARCHBOLD,  JOHN  D.    .  .  . 
ARMOR,  WILLIAM  C.    .  .  . 

BARNSDALL,  THEODORE   . 
BARNSDALL,  WILLIAM   .  . 
BAUM,  WILLIAM  T  

ige 

268 
104 
292 

,4o° 
336 

337 
I  "3 
364 
323 

192 

1 

317 
124 

292 

i4, 
292 
292 
193 

97 
297 
308 
292 
306 
54 

20 

a 

271 

1 

389 

$ 

95 

291 

303 

303 
399 

104 
76 
314 
190 
54 
230 

36 

115 

320 

22  S 
3«7 

54 

326 
54 

128 
73 
192 
76 

."9 
in 
365 
265 

Name                                    Page 
FISHER,  JOHN  J  265 
FORMAN,  GEORGE  V.   ...  274 
FUNK,  CAPT.  A.  B  119 

GALLOWAY,  JOHN  ....     161 
GRANDIN,  ELIJAH  B.  ...  184 
GRANDIN,  JOHN  L  184 
GRAY,  SAMUEL  H  324 
GREENLEE  C  D                   .  249 

Name                                      Page 
MCMULLEN,  JUSTUS  C.  .  .  323 

NESBITT,  GEORGE    ....  225 
NICKLIN,  JAMES  P  78 
NOBLE,  ORANGE    36 

O'DAY,  DANIEL  271 
OESTERLIN,  DR.  CHAS.  .  .  334 
OSMER,  JAMES  H  208 

PERSONS,  CHARLES  E.    .  .  320 
PHILLIPS,  THOMAS  W.    .  .   54 
PHILLIPS,  WILLIAM    .  .  .  108 
PLACE,  JAMES  M  314 
PLUMER,  FREDERICK  ...  216 
PLUMER,  WARREN  C.  .   .  .  292 
PONTON,  JOHN    316 
PRATT,  CHARLES  ....    -365 
PRENTICE,  FREDERIC  .  .  .  101 

REISINGER,  COL.  J.  W.  H.  .  298 
RENO,  GEN.  JESSE  L-  .  •  .  206 
ROBERTS,  COL.  E.  A.  L-  .  .  33° 
ROBERTS,  DR.  WALTERS.  .  330 
ROCKEFELLER,  JOHN  D.  .  355 
ROUSE,  HENRY  R  108 

SEEP,  JOSEPH  283 
SHAMBURG,  DR.  G  163 
SHANNON,  PHILIP  M.  .  .  .  180 
SHEAKLEY,  Gov.  JAMES  .  162 
SHEASLEY,  JACOB  76 
SIBLEY,  EDWIN  H  324 
SIBLEY,  JOSEPH  C  89 
SIMPSON,  ROBERT  .      ...  308 
SIVITER,  WILLIAM  H.   .  .  306 
SMILEY,  EDWIN  W  295 
SMITH,  WM.  A  55 
SNELL,  ALFRED  L  323 
SNOWDEN,  REV.  N.  R.   .  .    18 
SPEECHLY,  SAMUEL  ....  334 
STONE,  CHARLES  W.    .  .  .  188 
STUCK,  COL.  EDWARD  H.  .  306 
SWAN  B   E      •                        94 

GRIMM,  DANIEL     76 
GROUP  AT  OIL  CITY   ...  281 
GROUP  AT  PARKER  ....  204 
GROUP  AT  ST.  JOE  ....  100 
GROUP  AT  THORN  CREEK.  243 
GUFFEY,  JAMES  M  220 

HAFFEY,  COL.  J.  H.     ...  320 
HARLEY,  HENRY   268 
HARLEY,  STEPHEN  W.    .  .317 
HASSON,  CAPT.  WILLIAM  .  108 
HENRY,  COL.  JAMES  T.  .  .292 
HOOVER,  COL.  JAMES  P.  .    76 
HOPKINS,  EDWARD  .  .   .  .271 
HUGHES,  S.  B  178 
HULINGS,  MARCUS   ....  216 
HUNTER,  JAHU  230 
HUNTER,  DR.  W.  G  35 
HYDE,  CHARLES    54 

IRVIN,  SAMUEL  P  319 

JAMES,  HENRY  F  76 
JANES,  HEMAN   138 
JENNINGS,  RICHARD    ...  235 
JOHNS,  WALTER  R  292 
JOHNSTON,  DR.  FRANK  H.  .  324 
JONES,  EDWARD  C.   .   .   .     322 
JONES,  CAPT.  J.  T  192 

KARNS,  STEPHEN  D.    .  .  .  225 
KERN,  THOMAS  A  320 
KIER,  SAMUEL  M  27 
KIRK,  DAVID   192 

LAMBING,  JAMES  223 
LEE    JOHN  H             ....  216 

BELL,  EDWIN  C  
BENNINGHOFF,  JOHN  .  .   . 
BISHOP,  COLEMAN  E.  .  .  . 
BISSELL,  GEORGE  H.  .  .  . 
BLEAKLEY,  COL.  JAMES.  . 
BLOSS,  HENRY  C  
BLOSS,  WILLIAM  W.    .  .  . 
BODEN,  FREDERICK    .  .  . 
BOOTH,  J.  WILKES   .  .  .  . 
BORLAND,  JAMES  B.    .  .   . 
BOWEN,  FRANK  W  
BOWMAN   J  H 

BOYLE,  PATRICK  C  
BREWER,  DR.  F.  B  
BUCHANAN,  GEORGE    .  .  . 

CADY  DANIEL    

CAIN,  COL.  JOHN  H.    .  .   . 
CAMPBELL,  JOHN  R.    .   .   . 
CARNEGIE,  ANDREW  .  .  . 
CARROLL,  REUBEN   .  .   .  . 
CARROLL  R.  W  
CARTER,  COL.  JOHN  J.  .  . 
CLAPP,  EDWIN  E  
COCHRAN,  ALEXANDER  .  . 
COCHRAN,  ROBERT  L.  .  .   . 
CONE,  ANDREW  ...... 
CONE,  MRS.  ANDREW  .  .  . 
CONVER,  PETER  O  
CRANE,  REV.  EZRA  G.    .  . 
CRAWFORD,  WILLIAM  R.  . 
CRISWELL,  ROBERT  W.  .   . 
CROCKER,  FREDERICK    .  . 
CROSSLEY,  DAVID  
CUMMINGS,  CAPT.  H.  H.  .  . 

DELAMATER,  GEORGE  B.  . 
DELAMATER,  WALLACE  G. 
DENNISON,  DAVID  D.  .  .  . 
DIMICK,  GEORGE  
DODD,  SAMUEL  C.  T.    .  .  . 
DRAKE,  COL.  EDWIN  L.  .  . 

EATON,  REV.  S.  J.  M.  .  .  . 
EGBERT,  DR.  A.  G  
EGBERT,  DR.  M.  C  
EMERY  DAVID 

TARBELL,  FRANKLIN  $.  .  108 
TARR,  JAMES  S  135 
TAYLOR,  FRANK  H  306 
TAYLOR,  O.  P  202 
THOMPSON,  WM.  A  240 
THROPP,  Miss  AMELIA  .  .303 
TITUS,  JONATHAN     ....   59 
TRUESDELL,  FRANK  W.  .  .  314 
TYSON,  JAMES    3" 

VANAUSDALL,  JOHN     .  .  .  108 
VANDERGRIFT,  CAPT.  J.  J.  274 
VANDERGRIFT,  T.  J.    ...  247 

WATSON,  JONATHAN   ...    54 
WELCH,  PHILIP  C  308 
WHEELER  J.  N.              .  .  259 

LEONARD,  CHARLES  C.   .  .  310 
LOCK,  JONATHAN  71 
LONGWELL,  W.  H  292 

MAPES,  GEORGE  E  314 
MARTINDALE,  THOMAS  .   . 
MATHER,  JOHN  A  159 
METCALFE,  L-  H  292 
MILLER,  CHARLES    ....   89 
MITCHELL,  FOSTER  W.  .   .  146 
MITCHELL,  JOHN  L.    .  .  .  146 
MITCHELL,  J.  PLUMER  .  .  347 
MORTON,  COL.  L.  M.    ...  292 
:,!UNSON,  WILLIAM  ....  339 
MURRAY,  F.  F  314 

MCCALMONT,  S.  P  296 

MCCLINTOCK,  HOMER    .  .  306 
McCRAY,  JAMES  S  131 
MCDONOUGH,  COL.  THOS.  .  135 
MCKEOWN,  JOHN  192 
MCKINNEY,  J.  CURTIS    .  .  237 
MCKINNEY,  JOHN  L.    .  •     237 
MCLAURIN,  JOHN  J.     ... 
Frontispiece 

WHITAKER,  ALBERT  P.  .  .  293 
WHITAKER,  WILLIAM  S.  .  297 
WICKER,  CHARLES  C.  ...  309 

YOUNG   W   J                       .  233 

EMERY,  LEWIS   
EVANS,  JAMES   

FERTIG,  JOHN    
FERTIG,  SAMUEL  S.  .  .  . 
FISHER,  FREDERICK    .  . 
FISHER,  HENRY  

ZANE,  JOHN  P  108 
ZEIGLER,  COL.  JACOB  .  .  .  319 

(viii) 


CONTENTS. 


Pages 

CHAPTER  I.     LOOKING  BACKWARD i-io 

Petroleum  in  Ancient  Times — Known  from  an  Early  Period  in 
the  World's  History — Mentioned  in  the  Scriptures  and  by 
Primitive  Writers — Solomon  Sustained— Stumbling  Upon 
the  Greasy  Staple  in  Various  Lands — Incidents  and  Anec- 
dotes of  Different  Sorts  and  Sizes — Over  Asia,  Africa  and 
Europe. 

CHAPTER  II.     AMERICA  ON  DECK 13-22 

Numerous  Indications  of  Oil  on  this  Continent  — Lake  of 
Asphaltum— Petroleum  Springs  in  New  York  and  Penn- 
sylvania— How  History  is  Manufactured— Pioneers  Dipping 
and  Utilizing  the  Precious  Fluid — Tombstone  Literature — 
A  Pathetic  Episode— A  Singular  Strike— Geology  Tries 
to  Explain  a  Knotty  Point. 

CHAPTER  III.     NEARING  THE  DAWN 25-35 

Salt-Water  Helping  Solve  the  Problem— Kier's  Important  Ex- 
periments—Remarkable Shaft  at  Tarentum — West  Vir- 
ginia and  Ohio  to  the  Front— The  Lantern  Fiend— What 
an  Old  Map  Showed— Kentucky  Plays  Trumps— The 
Father  of  Flowing  Wells— Sundry  Experiences  and  Ob- 
servations at  Various  Points. 

CHAPTER  IV.     A  TALE  OF  TWO  STATES 37-52 

Interesting  Petroleum  Developments  in  Kentucky  and  Tennes- 
see—The Famous  American  Well— A  Boston  Company 
Takes  Hold  -Providential  Escape — Regular  Mountain 
Vendetta — A  Sunday  Lynching  Party — Peculiar  Phases 
of  Piety  —  An  Old  Woman' s  Welcome  —  Warm  Recep- 
tion— Stories  of  Rustic  Simplicity. 

CHAPTER  V.     A  HOLE  IN  THE  GROUND 55-74 

The  First  Well  Drilled  for  Petroleum— The  Men  Who  Started 
Oil  on  Its  Triumphant  March— Colonel  Drake's  Opera- 
tions—Setting History  Right  —How  Titusville  was  Boomed 
and  a  Giant  Industry  Originated— Modest  Beginning  of 
the  Grandest  Enterprise  on  Earth  -  Side  Droppings  that 
Throw  Light  on  an  Imp  rtant  Subject. 

CHAPTER  VI.     THE  WORLD'S  LUBRICANT 77-106 

A  Glance  at  a  Pretty  Settlement — Evans  and  His  Wonderful 
Well— Heavy  Oil  at  Franklin  to  Grease  all  the  Wheels  in 
Creation  — Origin  of  a  Popular  Phrase— Operations  on 
French  Creek — Excitement  at  Fever  Heat — Galena  and 
Signal  Oil-Works—Rise  and  Progress  of  a  Great  Indus- 
try—Crumbs Swept  Up  for  General  Consumption. 

CHAPTER  VII.     THE  VALLEY  OF  PETROLEUM 109-154 

Wonderful  Scenes  on  Oil  Creek — Mud  and  Grease  Galore — 
Rise  and  Fall  of  Phenomenal  Towns — Schaffer,  Pioneer 
and  Petroleum  Centre — Fortune's  Queer  Vagaries — Wells 
Flowing  Thousands  of  Barrels— Sherman,  Delamater  and 
"Coal-Oil  Johnnie"  —  From  Penury  to  Wealth  and 
Back— Truthful  Recitals  that  Discount  Fairy-Tales. 

CHAPTER  VIII.     PITHOLE  AND  AROUND  THERE 157-170 

The  Meteoric  City  that  Dazzled  Mankind— From  Nothing  to 
Sixteen-Thousand  Population  in  Three  Months — First 
Wells  and  Fabulous  Prices— Noted  Organizations— Sham- 
burg,  Red-Hot  and  Cash-Up — "Spirits"  Trying  Their 
Hand— The  Pleasantville  Furore — Facts  Surpassing  Fic- 
tion in  the  Wild  Scramble  for  the  Almighty  Dollar, 
fix) 


x  CONTENTS. 

Pages 

CHAPTER  IX.     A  BEE-LINE  FOR  THE  NORTH 173-202 

Along  the  Allegheny  River  from  Oil  Creek— The  First  Petro- 
leum Company's  Big  Strike— Ruler  of  President— Fagun- 
das,  Tidioute  and  Triumph  Hill— The  Economites— War- 
ren and  Forest — Cherry  Grove's  Boomshell — The  Great 
Bradford  Region — John  McKeown's  Millions — Richburg 
Lined  Up— Over  the  Canada  Border. 

CHAPTER  X.     ON  THE  SOUTHERN  TRAIL 205-256 

Down  the  Allegheny— Reno,  Scrubgrass,  Bullion— Clarion 
District— St.  Petersburg,  Antwerp,  Edenburg— Parker  to 
Greece  City— Butler's  Rich  Pastures— The  Cross  Belt— 
Petrolia,  Karns,  Millerstown— Thorn-Creek  Geysers— Mc- 
Donald Mammoths — Invasion  of  Washington — West  Vir- 
ginia Plays  the  Deuce— General  Gleanings. 

CHAPTER  XI.     FROM  THE  WELL  TO  THE  LAMP 259-290 

Transporting  Crude-Oil  by  Wagons  and  Boats— Unfathomable 
Mud  and  Swearing  Teamsters— Pond  Freshets— Estab- 
lishment of  Pipe-Lines — National-Transit  Company  and 
Some  of  Its  Officers — Speculation  in  Certificates— Ex- 
changes at  Prominent  Points — The  Product  that  Illumines 
the  World  at  Various  Stages  of  Progress. 

CHAPTER  XII.     THE  LITERARY  GUILD 293-328 

Clever  Journalists  Who  have  Catered  to  the  People  of  the  Oil 
Regions — Newspapers  and  the  Men  Who  Made  Them — 
Cultured  Writers,  Poets  and  Authors — Notable  Characters 
Portrayed  Briefly — Short  Extracts  from  Many  Sources — A 
Bright  Galaxy  of  Talented  Thinkers— Words  and  Phrases 
that  will  Enrich  the  Language  for  all  Time. 

CHAPTER  XIII.     NITRO-GLYCERINE  IN  THIS 331-352 

Explosives  as  Aids  to  the  Production  of  Oil — The  Roberts  Tor- 
pedo Monopoly  and  Its  Leaders — Unprecedented  Litiga- 
tion—Moonlighters at  Work — Fatalities  from  the  Deadly 
Compound — Portraits  and  Sketches  of  Victims — Men 
Blown  to  Fragments — Strange  Escapes — The  Loaded 
Porker — Stories  to  Accept  or  Reject  as  Impulse  Prompts. 

CHAPTER  XIV.    THE  STANDARD  OIL-COMPANY 355-369 

Growth  of  a  Great  Corporation— Misunderstood  and  Misrepre- 
sented— Improvements  in  Treating  and  Transporting  Pe- 
troleum—Why Many  Refiners  Collapsed— Real  Meaning 
of  the  Trust— What  a  Combination  of  Brains  and  Capital 
has  Accomplished— Men  Who  Built  Up  a  Vast  Enterprise 
that  has  no  Equal  in  the  World. 

CHAPTER  XV.    JUST  ODDS  AND  ENDS 371-406 

How  Natural  Gas  Played  Its  Part— Fire  and  Water  Much  in 
Evidence — Changes  in  Methods  and  Appliances — Desert- 
ed Towns — Peculiar  Coincidences  and  Fatalities — Rail- 
road Episodes — Reminiscences  of  Bygone  Scenes — Practi- 
cal Jokers— Sad  Tragedies— Lights  and  Shadows  Inter- 
mingle and  the  Curtain  Falls  Forever. 


LOOKING   BACKWARD. 

PETROLEUM  IN  ANCIENT  TIMES — KNOWN  FROM  AN  EARLY  PERIOD  IN  THE 
WORLD'S  HISTORY—  MENTIONED  IN  THE  SCRIPTURES  AND  BY  PRIMITIVE 
WRITERS— SOLOMON  SUSTAINED— STUMBLING  UPON  THE  GREASY  STAPLE 
IN  VARIOUS  LANDS — INCIDENTS  AND  ANECDOTES  OF  DIFFERENT  SORTS  AND 
SIZES— OVER  ASIA,  AFRICA  AND  EUROPE. 


Oil  out  of  the  flinty  rock." — Deuteronomy  xxxii :  ij. 

And  the  rock  poured  me  out  rivers  of  oil."— Job  xxix:  6. 

Will  the  Lord  be  pleased  with    *    *    *    ten  thousands  of  rivers  of  oil  ?  "—Micah  vi :  7. 

I  have  myself  seen  pitch  drawn  out  of  the  lake  and  from  water  in  Zacynthus."  —  Herodotus. 

The  people  of  Agrigentum  save  oil  in  pits  and  burn  it  in  lamps." — Dioscorides,  Vol.  1 : p.  99. 


ETROLEUM,  a  name  to  conjure  with  and  weave 
romances  around,  helps  out  Solomon's  oft-mis- 
applied declaration  of  "  Nothing  new  under  the 
sun."  Possibly  it  filled  no  place  in  domestic 
economy  when  the  race,  if  the  Darwinian  theory 
passes  muster,  sported  as  ring-tailed  simians, 
yet  the  Scriptures  and  primitive  writers  mention 
the  article  repeatedly.  Many  intelligent  persons , 
recalling  the  tallow-dip  and  lard-oil  lamp  of 
their  youth,  consider  the  entire  petroleum  busi- 
ness of  very  recent  date,  whereas  its  history 
goes  back  to  remotest  antiquity.  Naturally  they 
are  disappointed  to  find  it,  in  various  aspects , 
"  the  same  thing  over  again."  Men  and  women 
in  the  prime  of  life  have  forgotten  the  flickering 
pine-knot,  the  sputtering  candle  or  the  smoky  sconce  hardly  long  enough  to 
associate  rock-oil  with  "  the  brave  days  of  old."  This  idea  of  newness  the 
host  of  fresh  industries  created  by  oil  operations  has  tended  to  deepen  in  the 
popular  mind.  Enjoying  the  brilliant  glow  of  a  modern  argand-burner,  double- 
wicked,  silk-shaded,  onyx-mounted  and  altogether  a  genuine  luxury,  it  seems 
hard  to  realize  that  the  actual  basis  of  this  up-to-date  elegance  has  existed  from 
time  immemorial.  Of  derricks,  drilling-tools,  tank-cars,  refineries  and  pipe- 
lines our  ancestors  were  blissfully  ignorant ;  but  petroleum  itself,  the  foundation 
of  the  countless  paraphernalia  of  the  oil  trade  of  to-day,  flourished  "ere  Noah's 
flood  had  space  to  dry."  Although  used  to  a  limited  extent  in  crude  form  for 
thousands  of  years,  it  was  reserved  for  the  present  age  to  introduce  the  grand 
illuminant  to  the  world  generally.  After  sixty  centuries  the  game  of"  hide-and- 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


seek"  between  Mother  Earth  and  her  children  has  terminated  in  favor  of  the 
latter.  They  have  pierced  Nature's  internal  laboratories,  tapping  the  huge  oil- 
tanks  wherein  the  products  of  her  quiet  chemistry  had  accumulated  "  in  bond," 
and  up  came  the  unctuous  fluid  in  volumes  ample  to  fill  all  the  lamps  the 
universe  could  manufacture  and  to  grease  every  wheel  on  this  revolving  planet ! 
Edward  Bellamy  may,  perhaps,  be  imitated  pleasantly  and  profitably  in  this 
connection  by  "  Looking  Backward." 

Precisely  how,  when,  where  and  by  whom  petroleum  was  first  discovered 
and  utilized  nobody  living  can,  and  nobody  dead  will,  tell  anxious  inquirers. 
The  information  has  "gone  where  the  woodbine  twineth,"  joining  the  dodo, 
the  megatherium,  the  ichthyosaurus  and  the  "lost  arts"  Wendell  Phillips  em- 
balmed in  fadeless  prose.     An  erratic  Joe-Millerite  has  traced  the  stuff  to  the 
Garden  of  Eden  in  a  fashion  akin  to  the  chopping  logic  of  the  Deacon's  "Won- 
derful One-Horse  Shay."     Hear  him  : 
"Adam  had  a  fall?" 
"Granted." 
"  He  fell  very  easily?  " 
"Sure  as  death  and  taxes." 
"  Why  did  he  fall  with  such  neatness 
and  dispatch  ? ' ' 

"  May  be  he  took  a  spring  to  fall." 
' '  Because  everything  was  greased  for 
the  occasion  !     Unquestionably  the  only 
„,_.,  lubricant  on  this  footstool  just  then  was 
'^  the  petroleum  brewed  in  God's  own  sub- 
terranean   stills.      Therefore,    petroleum 
figured  in  Eden,  which  was  to  be  demon- 
strated.    See?" 

There  is  no  "irrepressible  conflict" 
between  this  reasoning,  the  version  of 
the  Pentateuch  and  the  idea  of  Peck's 
Bad  Boy  that  "Adam  clumb  a  appul- 
tree  to  put  coal-oil  on  it  to  kill  the  insecks,  an'  he  saw  a  snaik,  an'  the  oil 
made  the  tree  slippy,  an'  he  fell  bumpety-bump  !" 

Other  wags  attribute  the  longevity  of  antediluvian  veterans  to  their  unstinted 
use  of  petroleum  for  internal  and  external  ailments  !  Had  medical  almanacs, 
patent  nostrums  and  circus-bill  testimonials  been  evolved  at  that  interesting 
period,  the  oleum  vender  would  have  hit  the  bull's-eye  plump  in  the  center. 
Guess  at  the  value  of  recommendations  like  these,  with  the  latest  accompani- 
ment of  ' '  before-and-after ' '  pictures  in  the  newspapers  : 

LAND  OF  NOD,  April i,  B.  C.  3678.— This  is  to  certify  that  I  keep  my  strength  up  to  black- 
smith pitch  by  frequent  applications  of  Petroleum  Prophylactic  and  six  big  drinks  of  Benzine 
Bitters  daily.  Lifting  an  elephant,  with  one  hand  tied  behind  me,  is  my  favorite  trick. 

SANDOW  TUBAL-CAIN. 

MT.  ARARAT,  July  4,  B.  0.4004. — Your  medicine  is  out  of  sight  in  our  family.  It  relieved 
papa  of  an  overdose  of  fire-water,  imbibed  in  honor  of  his  boat  distancing  Dunraven's  barge  on 
this  glorious  anniversary,  and  cured  Ham  of  trichina  yesterday.  Mamma's  pug  slid  off  the  upper 
deck  into  the  swim  and  was  fished  out  in  a  comatose  condition.  A  solitary  whiff  of  your  Pungent 
Petroleum  Pastils  revived  him  instantly,  and  he  was  able  to  howl  all  night. 

SHEM  &  JAPHETH. 

SOMEWHERE  IN  ASIA,  Dec.  21,  B.C.  4019.— Your  incomparable  Petroleum  Prophylactic,  which 
I  first  learned  about  from  a  college  chum,  is  a  daisy-cutter.  Thanks  to  its  superlative  virtues,  I 
have  lived  to  be  a  trifle  older  than  the  youngest  ballet-girl  in  the  "  Black  Crook."  I  celebrated 


THE  BAD  BOY'S  IDEA  OF  ADAM'S  FALL. 


LOOKING   BACKWARD. 


my  nine-hundred-and-sixty-ninth  birthday  by  walking  umsteen  miles  before  luncheon,  playing 
left-tackle  with  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  Football  Team  in  the  afternoon  and  witnessing  "  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin"— two  Topsys,  two  Markses,  two  Evas,  two  donkeys  and  four  Siberian  bloodhounds 
— in  the  evening.    Next  morning's  paper  flung  this  ticket  to  the  breeze : 
"  For  Mayor  of  Jeroosalum 

We  nominate  Methoosalum." 

By  sticking  faithfully  and  fearlessly  to  your  unrivaled  elixir  I  expect  to  round  out  my  full 
thousand  years  and  run  for  a  second  term.  Refer  silver  sceptics  and  gold-bug  office-seekers  to 
me  for  particulars  as  to  the  proper  course  of  treatment. 

GROVER  LINGER  LONGER  METHUSELAH. 

PLEASANT  VALLEY,  Oct.  joth,  B.  C.  5555. — I  just  want  to  shout  "  Eureka,"  "  Excelsior," 
"  Hail  Columbia,"  "  E  Pluribus  Unum,"  and  give  three  cheers  for  your  Kill-em-off  Kerosene  ! 
Both  my  mothers-in-law,  who  had  bossed  me  seventy  decades,  tried  a  can  of  it  on  a  sick  fire 
this  morning.  Their  funeral  is  billed  for  four  o'clock  p.  m.  to-morrow.  Send  me  ten  gallons 
more  at  once.  BRIGHAM  YOUNG  LAMECH. 

ISLES  OF  GREECE. — I  defy  the  Jersey  Lightning  to  knock  me  out  while  your  Benzine  Bitters 
are  in  the  ring.  "  A  good  thing ;  push  it  along."  SULLIVAN  AJAX. 

Leaving  the  realm  of  conjecture,  it  is  quite  certain  that  the  "  pitch  "  which 
coated  the  ark  and  the  "slime"  of  the  builders  of  Babel  were  products  of 
petroleum.  Genesis  affirms  that  "the  vale  of  Siddim  was  full  of  slime-pits" — 
language  too  direct  to  be  dismissed  by  hinting  vaguely  at  "the  mistakes  of 
Moses."  Deuteronomy  speaks  of  "oil  out  of  the  flinty  rock"  and  Micah  puts 
the  pointed  query :  ' '  Will  the  Lord  be  pleased  with  *  *  *  ten  thousands  of 
rivers  of  oil?"  To  the  three  friends  who  condoled  with  him  in  his  grievous 
visitation  of  boils,  the  patriarch  of  Uz  asserted  :  "And  the  rock  poured  me 
out  rivers  of  oil."  Whatever  his  hearers  might  think  of  this  apparent  stretch 
of  fancy,  Job's  forecast  of  the  oleaginous  output  was  singularly  felicitous. 
Evidently  the  Old  Testament  writers,  whose  wise  heads  geology  had  not 
muddled,  knew  a  good  deal  about  the  petroleum  situation. 

Away  back  in  the  fifties,  a  zealous  New- York  fol- 
lower of   Voltaire  was  accustomed    to  wind  up    his 
assaults  on  inspiration  by  criticising  these  oily  quota- 
tions unmercifully.     ' '  Could  anything  be  more  absurd, ' ' 
he  would  ask,  ' '  than  to  talk  of  '  oil  from  a  flinty  rock ' 
and  '  rocks  pouring  forth  rivers  of  oil'  ? 
If  anything  were  needed  to  prove  the 
Bible   a  fool-book  from  start    to  finish, 
such  utterances  would  settle  the  matter 
beyond  dispute.     Rocks    yielding  rivers 
of  oil  cap  the  climax  of  ridiculous  non- 
sense !      Next  they'll  be  wanting  us  to 
believe  that  Jonah  swallowed  the  whale ! 
Bah  !" 

Months  and  years  passed  away  swift- 
ly, as  they  have  a  habit  of  doing,  and 
the  sturdy  agnostic  continued  arguing 
pluckily.  At  length  tidings  of  wells 
flowing  thousands  of  barrels  of  oil 
reached  him  from  William  Penn's  broad  heritage.  He  came,  he  saw  and, 
unlike  Julius  Caesar,  he  surrendered  unconditionally.  Remarking  "I'll  be 
jiggered  !  "  the  doubter  doubted  no  more.  He  revised  his  opinions,  hum- 
bly accepted  the  gospel  and  professed  religion,  openly  and  above-board. 
Hence  the  petroleum  development  is  entitled  to  the  credit  of  one  notable 


I'LL  BE  JIGGERED!" 


4  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

conversion,  at  least,  and  the  balance  is  on  the  right  side  of  the  ledger,  assum- 
ing that  a  human  soul  outweighs  the  terrestrial  globe  in  the  unerring  scales 
of  the  Infinite. 

Whether  petroleum,  which  literally  signifies  "rock-oil,"  be  of  mineral, 
vegetable  or  animal  origin  matters  little  to  the  producer  or  consumer,  who 
views  it  from  a  commercial  standpoint.  In  its  natural  state  it  is  a  variable 
mixture  of  numerous  liquid  hydro-carbons,  holding  in  solution  paraffine  and 
solid  bitumen,  or  asphaltum.  The  fountains  of  Is,  on  the  Euphrates,  were 
familiar  to  the  founders  of  Babylon,  who  secured  indestructible  mortar  for  the 
walls  of  the  city  by  pouring  melted  asphaltum  between  the  blocks  of  stone. 
These  famous  springs  attracted  the  attention  of  Alexander,  Trajan  and  Julian. 
Even  now  asphaltum  procured  from  them  is  sold  in  the  adjacent  villages.  The 
commodity  is  skimmed  off  the  saline  and  sulphurous  waters  and  solidified  by 
evaporation.  The  ancient  Egyptians  used  another  form  of  the  same  substance 
in  preparing  mummies,  probably  obtaining  their  supplies  from  a  spring  on  the 
Island  of  Zante,  described  by  Herodotus.  It  was  flowing  in  his  day,  it  is  flow- 
ing to-day,  and  a  citizen  of  Boston  owns  the  property.  Wells  drilled  near  the 
Suez  canal  in  1885  found  petroleum.  So  the  gay  world  jogs  on.  Mummified 
Pharaohs  are  burned  as  fuel  to  drive  locomotives  over  the  Sahara,  while  the 
Zantean  fount  whose  oil  besmeared  ' '  the  swathed  and  bandaged  carcasses ' '  is 
purchased  by  a  Massachusetts  bean-eater  !  Yet  victims  of  "that  tired  feeling  " 
turn  to  namby-pamby  fiction  for  real  romance ! 

Asphaltum  is  found  in  the  Dead  Sea,  the  supposed  site  of  Sodom  and 
Gomorrah,  and  on  the  surface  of  a  chain  of  springs  along  its  banks,  far  below 
the  level  of  the  ocean.  Strabo  referred  to  this  remarkable  feature  two  thousand 
years  ago.  The  destruction  of  the  two  ill-fated  cities  may  have  been  connected 
with,  if  not  caused  by,  vast  natural  stores  of  this  inflammable  petroleum.  The 
immense  accumulations  of  hardened  rock-oil  in  the  center  and  on  the  banks  of 
the  sea  were  oxidized  into  rosin-like  asphalt.  Pieces  picked  up  from  the 
waters  are  frequently  carved,  in  the  convents  of  Jerusalem,  into  ornaments, 
which  retain  an  oily  flavor.  Aristotle,  Josephus  and  Pliny  mention  similar 
deposits  at  Albania,  on  the  shores  of  the  Adriatic.  Dioscorides  Pedanius,  the 
Greek  historian,  tells  how  the  citizens  of  Agrigentum,  in  Sicily,  burned  petro- 
leum in  rude  lamps  prior  to  the  birth  of  Christ.  For  two  centuries  it  lighted 
the  streets  of  Genoa  and  Parma,  in  northern  Italy.  Plutarch  describes  a  lake 
of  blazing  petroleum  near  Ecbatana.  Persian  wells  have  produced  oil  liber- 
ally for  ages,  under  the  name  of  "naphtha,"  the  descendants  of  Cyrus,  Darius 
and  Xerxes  consuming  the  fluid  for  its  light.  The  earliest  records  of  China 
refer  to  petroleum  and  small  quantities  have  been  found  in  Thibet.  An  oil- 
fountain  on  one  of  the  Ionian  Islands  has  gushed  steadily  for  over  twenty 
centuries,  without  once  going  on  a  strike  or  taking  a  vacation.  Austria  and 
France  likewise  possess  oil-springs  of  considerable  importance.  Thomas 
Shirley,  in  1667,  tested  the  contents  of  a  shallow  pit  in  Lancashire,  England, 
which  burned  readily.  Rev.  John  Clayton,  who  visited  it  a  dozen  years  later, 
wrote  in  1691 : 

"  I  saw  a  ditch  where  the  water  burned  like  brandy.  Country  folk  boil  eggs  and  even  meat 
in  it." 

Near  Bitche,  a  small  fort  perched  on  the  top  of  a  peak,  at  the  entrance  of 
one  of  the  defiles  of  Lorraine,  opening  into  the  Vosges  Mountains — a  fort 
which  was  of  great  embarrassment  to  the  Prussians  in  their  last  French  cam- 
paign—and in  the  valley  guarded  by  this  fortress  stand  the  chateau  and  village 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  5 

of  Walsbroun,  so  named  from  a  strange  spring  in  the  forest  behind  it.  In  the 
middle  ages  this  fountain  was  famous.  Inscriptions,  ancient  coins  and  the 
relics  of  a  Roman  road  attest  that  it  had  been  celebrated  in  even  earlier  times. 
In  the  sixteenth  century  a  basin  and  baths  for  sick  people  existed.  No  record 
of  its  abandonment  has  been  preserved.  In  the  last  century  it  was  rediscovered 
by  a  medical  antiquarian,  who  found  the  naphtha,  or  white  petroleum,  almost 
exhausted. 

Around  the  volcanic  isles  of  Cape  Verde  oil  floats  on  the  water  and  to 
the  south  of  Vesuvius  rises  through  the  Mediterranean,  exactly  as  when  ' '  the 
morning  stars  sang  together."  Hanover,  in  Germany,  boasts  the  most  north, 
erly  of  European  "earth-oils."  The  islands  of  the  Ottoman  Archipelago 
and  Syria  are  richly  endowed  with  the  same  product.  Roumania  is  literally 
flowing  with  petroleum,  which  oozes  from  the  Carpathians  and  pollutes  the 
water-springs.  Turkish  domination  has  hindered  the  development  of  the 
Roumanian  region.  Southern  Australia  is  blessed  with  bituminous  shales, 
resembling  those  in  Scotland,  good  for  sixty  gallons  of  petroleum  to  the  ton. 
The  New-Zealanders  obtained  a  meager  supply  from  the  hill-sides,  collecting 
carefully  the  droppings  from  the  interior  rocks,  and  several  test  wells  have 
resulted  satisfactorily.  Verily,  ' '  no  pent-up  Utica  confines  ' '  petroleum  within 
the  narrow  compass  of  a  nation  or  a  continent.  With  John  Wesley  it  may 
exultingly  exclaim  :  "  The  world  is  my  parish  !" 

The  Rangoon  district  of  India  long  yielded  four  hundred  thousand  hogs- 
heads annually,  the  Hindoos  using  the  oil  to  heal  diseases,  to  preserve  timber 
and  to  cremate  corpses.  Birma  has  been  supplied  from  this  source  for  an 
unknown  period.  The  liquid,  which  is  of  a  greenish-brown  color  and  resem- 
bles lubricating-oil  in  density,  gathers  in  pits  sunk  twenty  to  ninety  feet  in  beds 
of  sandy  clays,  overlying  slates  and  sandstones.  Clumsy  pots  or  buckets,  oper- 
ated by  quaint  wind- 


la  sses,  hoist  the  oil 
slowly  to  the  mouth  of 
the  pits,  whence  it  is 
often  carried  across 
the  country  in  leathern 
bags,  borne  on  men's 
shoulders,  or  in 
earthen  jars,  packed 
into  carts  drawn  by- 
oxen.  Major  Michael 
Symes,  ambassador  to 
the  Court  of  Ava  in 
1765,  published  a  nar- 
rative of  his  sojourn, 
in  which  this  passage 
occurs : 

"  We  rode  until  two 
o'clock,  at  which  hour  we 
reached  Yaynangheomn,  or 
Petroleum  Creek.  *  *  *  The  smell  of  the  oil  is  extremely  offensive.  It  was  nearly  dark  when 
we  approached  the  pits.  There  seemed  to  be  a  great  many  pits  within  a  small  compass.  Walking 
to  the  nearest,  we  found  the  aperture  about  four  feet  square  and  the  sides  lined,  as  far  as  we 
could  see  down,  with  timber.  The  oil  is  drawn  up  in  an  iron  pot,  fastened  to  a  rope  passed 
over  a  wooden  cylinder,  which  revolves  on  an  axis  supported  by  two  upright  posts.  When  the 
pot  is  filled,  two  men  take  hold  of  the  rope  by  the  end  and  rua  down  a  declivity,  which  is  cut  in 


OIL-WELLS   IN   INDIA. 


6  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

the  ground,  to  a  distance  equal  to  the  depth  of  the  well.  When  they  reach  the  end  of  the  track 
the  pot  is  raised  to  its  proper  elevation  ;  the  contents,  water  and  oil  together,  are  discharged  into 
a  cistern,  and  the  water  is  afterwards  drawn  through  a  hole  in  the  bottom.  *  *  *  When  a 
pit  yielded  as  much  as  came  up  to  the  waist  of  a  man,  it  was  deemed  tolerably  productive  ;  if  it 
reached  his  neck  it  was  abundant,  and  that  which  reached  no  higher  than  his  knee  was  accounted 
indifferent." 

Labor-saving  machinery  has  not  forged  to  the  front  to  any  great  degree  in 
the  oil-fields  of  the  East  Indies.  For  the  Burmese  trade  flat-boats  ascend  the 
Irrawaddy  to  Rainanghong,  a  town  inhabited  almost  exclusively  by  the  potters 
who  make  the  earthen  jars  in  which  the  oil  is  kept  for  this  peculiar  traffic. 
The  methods  of  saving  and  handling  the  greasy  staple  have  not  changed  one 
iota  since  John  the  Baptist  wore  his  suit  of  camel's-hair  and  curry-combed  the 
Sadducees  in  the  Judean  wilderness.  Progress  cuts  no  ice  beneath  the  shad- 
ows of  the  Himalayas,  notwithstanding  the  missionary  efforts  of  Xavier, 
Judson,  Gary,  Morrison  and  Duff. 

Petroleum  in  India  occurs  in  middle  or  lower  tertiary  rock.  In  the  Rawal- 
pindi district  of  the  Punjab  it  is  found  at  sixteen  localities.  At  Gunda  a  well 
yielded  eleven  gallons  a  day  for  six  months,  from  a  boring  eighty  feet  deep, 
and  one  two-hundred  feet  deep,  at  Makum,  produced  a  hundred  gallons  an 
hour.  The  coast  of  Arakan  and  the  adjacent  islands  have  long  been  famed 
for  mud  volcanoes  caused  by  the  eruption  of  hydrocarbon  gasses.  Forty, 
thousand  gallons  a  year  of  petroleum  have  been  exported  by  the  natives  from 
Kyoukpyu.  The  oil  is  light  and  pure.  In  1877  European  enterprise  was 
attracted  to  this  industry  and  in  1879  work  was  undertaken  by  the  Borongo  Oil 
Co.  The  company  started  on  a  large  scale  and  in  1883  had  twenty-four  wells 
in  operation,  ranging  from  five-hundred  to  twelve-hundred  feet  in  depth,  one 
yielding  for  a  few  weeks  one-thousand  gallons  daily.  The  total  pumped  from 
ten  wells  during  the  year  was  a  quarter-million  gallons  ;  and  in  1884  the  com- 
pany had  to  suspend  payment.  Large  supplies  of  high-class  petroleum  might 
be  obtained  from  this  region,  if  suitable  methods  of  working  were  employed. 

Japan  also  takes  a  position  in  the  oleiferous  procession  allied  to  that  of 
the  yellow  dog  under  the  band-wagon.  At  the  base  of  Fuji-Yama,  a  mountain 
of  respectable  altitude,  the  thrifty  subjects  of  the  Mikado  manage  a  cluster  of 
oil-pits  in  the  style  practiced  by  their  forefathers.  The  miry  holes,  the  creaking 
apparatus  and  the  general  surroundings  are  second  editions  of  the  Rangoon 
exhibits.  Yum-Yum's  countrymen  are  clever  students  and  they  have  much 
to  learn  concerning  petroleum.  Twenty-one  years  ago  a  Japanese  nobleman 
inspected  the  Pennsylvania  oil- fields,  sent  thither  to  report  to  the  government 
all  about  the  American  system  of  operating  the  territory.  His  observations, 
embodied  in  an  official  statement,  failed  to  amend  the  moss-grown  processes 
of  the  Fuji-Yamans,  who  preferred  to  "fight  it  out  on  the  old  line  if  k  took 
all  summer." 

In  1874  S.  G.  Bayne,  now  president  of  the  Seaboard  Bank  of  New  York 
and  the  most  successful  disposer  of  oil-well  outfits  "that  e'er  the  sun  shone 
on,"  visited  these  oriental  regions.  The  hard  fate  of  the  benighted  heathen 
moved  him  to  briny  tears.  They  had  never  heard  or  read  of  "the  annealed 
steel  coupling,"  "the  Palm  link,"  the  tubing,  casing,  engines  and  boilers  the 
distinguished  tourist  had  planted  in  every  nook  and  corner  of  Oildom.  With 
the  spirit  of  a  true  philanthropist,  Bayne  determined  to  "set  them  on  a  higher 
plane."  His  choicest  Hindostanee  persiflage  was  aired  in  detailing  the  advan- 
tages of  the  Pennsylvania  plan  of  running  the  petroleum  machine.  Tales  of 
fortunes  won  on  Oil  Creek  and  the  Allegheny  River  were  garnished  with 


LOOKING    BACKWARD.  7 

scintillations  of  Irish  wit  that  ought  to  have  convulsed  the  listeners.  Alas  !  the 
supine  Asiatics  were  not  built  that  way  and  the  good  seed  fell  upon  barren  soil. 
The  story  and,  despite  the  finest  lacquer  and  veneer  embellishments,  the  expe- 
rience were  repeated  in  Japan.  What  better  could  be  expected  of  pagans  who 
wore  skirts  for  full-dress,  practiced  hari-kari 
and  knew  not  a  syllable  about  Brian  Boru  ? 
Their  conduct  was  another  convincing  evi- 
dence of  "the  stern  Calvinistic  doctrine"  of 
total  depravity.  The  Japs  voted  to  stay  in 
their  venerable  rut  and  not  monkey  with  the 
Yankee  buzz-saw.  "And  the  band  played 
on." 

Years  afterwards  two  cars  of  drilling-tools 
and  well-machinery  were  shipped  to  Calcutta 
and  a  couple  of  complete  rigs  to  Yeddo — 
"only  this  and  nothing  more."     The  genial 
Bayne  attempted  to  square  the  account  by 
printing  his  eastern  adventures  and  sending 
marked  copies  of  translations  to  the  Indo- 
Japanese  press.      Doubtless  the  waste-basket 
received  what  the  office-cat  spared  of  this  un- 
usual consignment.     Mr.  Bayne  began  his  prosperous  career  as  an  oilman  by 
striking  a  snug  wrell  in  1869,  on  Pine  Creek,  near  Titusville.     His  unique  adver- 
tisements have  spread  his  fame  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific.     Digest  these 
random  flecks  of  heart-foam  as  samples  of  originality  worthy  of  John  J.  Ingalls  : 

"  We  never  make  kite-track  records ;  our  speed  takes  in  the  full  circle." 

"  The  graveyards  of  the  enemy  are  the  monuments  of  our  success." 

"  We  never  speak  of  our  goods  without  glancing  at  the  bust  of  George  Washington  which 
squats  on  the  top  of  our  annealed  steel  safe;  a  twenty-five  cent  plaster  cast  of  George  lends  an 
atmosphere  of  veracity  to  a  trade  which  in  these  days  it  sometimes  needs  " 

"Abdul  Azis,  the  late  Sultan  of  Morocco,  bought  a  cheap  boiler  to  drill  a  water  well.  It 
bu'st  and  he  is  now  Abdul  Azwas." 

"  We  will  never  be  buried  with  the  '  unknown  dead  '—we  advertise.'' 

"  Our  patent  coupling  is  the  precipitated  vapor  of  fermented  progress." 

"  The  intellectual  and  aesthetic  are  provided  for  in  consanguinity  to  their  taste." 

"  Our  conversational  soloists  never  descend  to  orthochromatic  photography  in  their  orphean 
flights;  they  hug  the  shore  of  plain  Anglo-Saxon  and  scoop  the  doubting  Thomas." 

"  It  will  never  do  to  shake  a  man  because  the  lambrequins  begin  to  appear  on  the  bottom  of 
his  pants  and  he  wears  a  '  dickey '  with  a  sinker." 

"  The  Forget-me-nots  of  to-day  are  frequently  found  the  Has-beens  of  to-morrow." 

"  Our  collector  bestrides  a  hearse-horse,  and  you  can  bore  a  well  before  he  reaches  your 
neck  of  woods." 

"  Credit  is  the  flower  that  blooms  in  life's  buttonhole." 

"Many  a  man  who  now  gives  dinner-parties  in  a  Queen-Anne  froni  would  be  nibbling  his 
Frankfurter  in  a  Mary-Ann  back  had  we  not  given  him  a  helping  hand  at  the  right  moment.'' 

The  classic  ground  of  petroleum  is  the  little  peninsula  of  Okestra,  jutting 
into  the  Caspian  Sea.  Extraordinary  indications  of  oil  and  gas  extend  over  a 
strip  of  country  twenty-five  miles  long  by  a  half-mile  wide,  in  porous  sand- 
stone. Springs  of  heavier  petroleum  flow  from  hills  of  volcanic  rocks  in  the 
vicinity.  Open  wells,  in  which  the  oil  settles  as  it  oozes  from  the  rocks,  are 
dug  sixteen  to  twenty  feet  deep.  For  countless  generations  the  simple  natives 
dipped  up  the  sticky  fluid  and  carried  it  great  distances  on  their  backs,  to  burn 
in  its  crude  state,  besides  sending  a  large  amount  yearly  to  the  Shah's  domin- 
ions. It  is  a  forbidding  spot — rocky,  desolate,  without  a  stream  or  a  sign  of 
vegetation.  The  unfruitful  soil  is  saturated  with  oil,  which  exudes  from  the 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


CLASSIC  GROUND   OF    PETROLEUM. 


neighboring  hills  and  sometimes  niters  into  receptacles  hewn  in  the  rock  at  a 
prehistoric  epoch.  On  gala  days  it  was  part  of  the  program  to  pour  the  oil  into 
the  Caspian  and  set  it  ablaze,  until  the  sea  and  land  and  sky  appeared  one 

unbroken  mass  of  vivid,  lurid,  roaring 
flame.  The  "pillar  of  fire  "  which  guided 
the  wandering  Israelites  by  night  could 
scarcely  have  presented  a  grander  spec- 
tacle. The  sight  might  well  convey  to 
awe-stricken  beholders  intensely  realistic 
notions  of  the  place  of  punishment  Col. 
Ingersoll  and  Henry  Ward  Beecher  have 
sought  by  tongue  and  pen  to  abolish. 
"Old  Nick,"  however,  at  last  advices 
was  still  doing  a  wholesale  business  at 
the  old  stand ! 

Near  Belegan,  six  miles  from  the  chief 
village  of  the  Baku  District,  the  grandest 
of  these  superb  exhibitions  was  given  in 
1817.  A  column  of  flame,  six-hundred 
yards  in  diameter,  broke  out  naturally, 
hurling  rocks  for  days  together,  until  they 
raised  a  mound  nine-hundred  feet  high. 
The  roar  of  steaming  brine  was  terrific.  Oil  and  gas  rise  wherever  a  hole  is 
bored.  The  sides  of  the  mountain  are  black  with  dark  exudations,  while  a 
spring  of  white  oil  issues  from  the  foot.  A  clay  pipe  or  hollow  reed,  steeped  in 
limewater  and  set  upright  in  the  floor  of  a  dwelling,  serves  as  a  sufficient  gas- 
pipe.  No  wonder  such  a  land  as  Baku,  where  in  the  fissures  of  the  earth  and 
rock  the  naphtha  vapors  flicker  into  flame,  where  a  boiling  lake  is  covered 
with  flame  devoid  of  sensible  heat,  where  after  the  autumn  showers  the 
surrounding  country  seems  wrapped  in  fire,  where  the  October  moon  lights 
up  with  an  azure  tint  the  entire  west  and  Mount  Paradise  dons  a  robe  of  fiery 
red,  where  innumerable  jets  of  flame  cover  the  plains  on  moonless  nights, 
where  all  the  phenomena  of  distillation  and  combustion  can  be  studied,  should 
have  aroused  the  religious  sentiment  of  oriental  mystics.  The  adoring  Parsee 
and  the  cold-blooded  chemist  might  worship  side  by  side.  Amidst  this 
devouring  element  men  live  and  love,  are  born  and  die,  plant  onions  and  raise 
sheep,  as  in  more  prosaic  regions. 

At  the  southern  extremity  of  the  peninsula  oil  and  gas  shoot  upward  in  a 
huge  pyramid  of  quenchless  light.  Here  is  "  the  eternal  fire  of  Aaku,"  burning 
as  when  Zoroaster  reverently  beheld  it  and  flame  became  the  symbol  of  Deity 
to  the  entranced  Parsees.  Here  the  poor  Gheber  gathered  the  fuel  to  feed  the 
sacred  fire  which  burns  perpetually  on  his  altar.  Hither  devout  pilgrims 
journeyed  even  from  far-off  Cathay,  to  do  homage  and  bear  away  a  few  drops 
of  the  precious  oil,  before  the  wolf  had  suckled  Romulus  or  Nebuchadnezzar 
had  been  turned  out  to  pasture.  At  Lourakhanel,  not  far  from  Baku,  is  a 
temple  built  by  the  fire-worshipers.  The  sea  in  places  has  such  quantities  of 
gas  that  it  can  be  lighted  and  burned  on  the  surface  of  the  water  until  extin- 
guished by  a  strong  wind.  Strange  destiny  of  petroleum,  first  and  last,  to  be 
the  panderer  of  idolatry — fire-worship  in  the  olden  time,  mammon-worship  in 
this  era  of  the  "almighty  dollar  !" 

Developments  from   Baku  to  the  region  north  of  the  Black  Sea,  seven 


LOOKING  BACKWARD.  9 

hundred  miles  westward,  have  revealed  vast  deposits  of  petroleum.  Hundreds 
of  wells  have  been  drilled,  some  flowing  one-hundred-thousand  barrels  a  day  ! 
Nobel  Brothers'  No.  50,  which  commenced  to  spout  in  1886,  kept  a  stream  rising 
four-hundred  feet  into  the  air  for  seventeen  months,  yielding  three-million 
barrels.  This  would  fill  a  ditch  five  feet  wide,  six  feet  deep  and  a  hundred 
miles  long.  These  monsters  eject  tons  of  sand  daily,  which  piles  up  in  high 
mounds.  Stones  weighing  forty  pounds  have  been  thrown  out.  The  common 
way  of  obtaining  the  oil  is  to  raise  it  by  means  of  long  metal  cylinders  with  trap 
bottoms.  Pumps  are  impossible,  on  account  of  the  fine  sand  coming  up  with 
the  oil.  These  cylinders  will  hold  from  one  to  four  barrels  and,  on  being 
raised  to  the  surface,  are  discharged  into  pipes  or  ditches.  Each  trip  of  the 
bucket  or  cylinder  takes  a  minute-and-a-half  and  the  well  is  worked  day  and 
night.  The  average  daily  yield  of  a  Russian  well  is  about  two-hundred  barrels. 

Pipe-lines,  refineries  and  railroads  have  been  provided  and  the  three  big 
companies  operating  the  whole  field  consolidated  in  1893.  The  Rothschilds 
combined  with  the  Nobels  and  a  prohibitory  tariff  prevents  the  importation  of 
foreign  oils.  Tank-steamers  ply  the  Caspian  Sea  and  the  Volga,  many  of  the 
railways  use  the  crude  oil  for  fuel  and  the  supply  is  practically  unlimited.  The 
petroleum  products  are  carried  in  these  steamers  to  a  point  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Volga  River  called  Davit  Foot,  about  four-hundred  miles  north  of  Baku  and 
ninety  miles  from  Astrakhan,  and  transferred  into  barges.  These  are  towed 
by  small  tug-boats  to  the  various  distributing  points  on  the  Volga,  where 
tanks  have  been  constructed  for  railway  shipments.  The  chief  distributing 
point  upon  the  Volga  is  Tsaritzin,  but  there  is  also  tankage  at  Saratof,  Kazan, 
and  Nijni-Novgorod.  From  these  points  it  is  distributed  all  over  Russia  in 
tank-cars.  Some  is  exported  to  Germany  and  to  Austria.  Russian  refined 
may  not  be  as  good  an  illuminant  as  the  American,  but  it  is  made  to  burn  well 
enough  for  all  purposes  and  emits  no  disagreeable  odor.  After  taking  from 
crude  thirty  per  cent,  illuminating  distillate,  about  fifteen  per  cent,  is  taken 
from  the  residuum.  It  is  called  "solar  oil "  and  the  lubricating-oil  distillate  is 
next  taken  off.  From  this  distillate  a  very  good  lubricant  is  obtained,  affected 
neither  by  intense  heat  nor  cold.  The  lubricating  oil  is  made  in  Baku,  but 
great  quantities  of  the  distillate  are  shipped  to  England,  France,  Belgium  and 
Germany  and  there  purified. 

Russian  competition  was  for  years  the  chief  danger  that  confronted  Amer- 
ican producers.  Three  partial  cargoes  of  petroleum  were  sent  to  the  United 
States  as  an  experiment,  netting  a  snug  profit.  Heaven  favors  the  hustler  from 
Hustlerville,  who  hoes  his  own  row  and  doesn't  squat  on  a  stump  expecting 
the  cow  will  walk  up  to  be  milked,  and  the  Yankee  oilmen  are  not  easily 
downed.  They  have  perfected  such  improvements  in  handling,  transporting, 
refining  and  marketing  their  product  that  the  major  portion  of  Europe  and  Asia, 
outside  of  the  czar's  dominions,  is  their  customer.  Nailing  their  colors  to  the 
mast  and  keeping  their  powder  dry,  the  oil  interests  of  this  glorious  climate 
don't  propose  to  quit  barking  until  the  last  dog  is  dead  ! 

All  these  things  prove  conclusively  that  petroleum  is  a  veritable  antique, 
always  known  and  prized  by  millions  of  people  in  Asia,  Africa  and  Europe, 
and  not  a  mushroom  upstart.  Indeed,  its  pedigree  sizes  up  to  the  most  exact- 
ing Philadelphia  requirement.  Mineralogists  think  it  was  quietly  distilling 
"underneath  the  ground"  when  the  majestic  fiat  went  forth  :  "  Let  there  be 
light!"  Happily  "age  does  not  wither  nor  custom  stale  the  infinite  variety  " 
of  its  admirable  qualities.  Neither  is  it  a  hot-house  exotic,  adapted  merely  to 


io  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

a  single  clime  or  limited  to  one  favored  section  of  any  country.  It  is  scattered 
widely  throughout  the  two  hemispheres,  its  range  of  usefulness  is  extending 
constantly  and  it  is  not  put  up  in  retail  packages,  that  exhaust  speedily.  Alike 
in  the  tropics  and  the  zones,  beneath  cloudless  Italian  skies  and  the  bleak 
Russian  firmament,  amid  the  flowery  vales  of  Cashmere  and  the  snow-crowned 
heights  of  the  Caucasus,  by  the  banks  of  the  turbid  Ganges  and  the  shores  of 
the  limpid  Danube,  this  priceless  boon  has  ever  contributed  to  the  comfort  and 
convenience  of  mankind. 

A  ragged  street-Arab,  taken  to  Sunday-school  by  a  kind  teacher,  heard  for 
the  first  time  the  story  of  Christ's  boundless  love  and  sufferings.  Big  tears 
coursed  down  his  grimy  cheeks,  until  he  could  no  longer  restrain  his  feelings. 
Springing  upon  the  seat,  the  excited  urchin  threw  his  tattered  cap  to  the  ceiling 
and  screamed  "Hurrah  for  Jesus!"  It  was  an  honest,  sincere,  reverent 
tribute,  which  the  recording  angel  must  have  been  delighted  to  note.  In  like 
manner,  considering  its  wondrous  past,  its  glowing  present  and  its  prospective 
future,  men,  women  and  children  everywhere,  while  profoundly  grateful  to  the 
Divine  Benefactor  for  the  transcendent  gift,  may  fittingly  join  in  a  universal 
"  Hurrah  for  Petroleum  !" 


Don't  make  the  mistake  that  Petroleum, 
Like  the  kodak,  the  bike,  or  linoleum, 

Is  something  decidedly  new ; 
Whereas  it  was  known  in  the  Garden 
When  Eve,  in  fig-leaf  Dolly  Varden, 

Gave  Adam  an  apple  to  chew. 
Nor  deem  it  a  human  invention, 
By  reason  of  newspaper  mention 
Just  lately  commanding  attention, 
Because  it  is  Nature's  own  brew. 

Repeatedly  named  in  the  Bible, 
Let  none  its  antiquity  libel 

Or  seek  to  explain  it  away. 
It  garnished  Methuselah's  table, 
Was  used  by  the  builders  of  Babel 

And  pilgrims  from  distant  Cathay  ; 
When  Pharaoh  and  Moses  were  chummy 
It  help'd  preserve  many  a  mummy, 
Still  dreadfully  life-like  and  gummy, 

In  Egypt's  stone  tombs  from  decay  ! 


At  Baku  Jove's  thunderbolts  fir'd  it, 
Devout  Zoroaster  admir'd  it 

As  Deity  symbol'd  in  flame  ; 
Parsees  from  the  realms  of  Darius, 
Unvveariedly  earnest  and  pious, 

Adoring  and  worshipping  came. 
It  cur'd  Noah's  Ham  of  trichina, 
Greas'd  babies  and  pig-tails  in  China, 
Heal'd  Arabs  from  far-off  Medina — 

The  blind  and  the  halt  and  the  lame ! 

Herodotus  saw  it  at  Zante, 

It  blazed  in  the  visions  of  Dante 

And  pyres  of  supine  Hindostan  ; 
The  tropics  and  zones  have  rich  fountaii 
It  bubbles  'mid  snow-cover'd  mountains 

And  flows  in  the  pits  of  Japan. 
Confin'd  to  no  country  or  nation, 
A  blessing  to  God's  whole  creation 
For  light,  heat  and  prime  lubrication, 

All  hail  to  this  grand  gift  to  man  ! 


EXPORTS   OF     PETROLEUM. 


QUANTITY  AND  VALUE  OK  PETROLEUM—  REFINED  REDUCED  TO  CRUDE  EQUIVALENT- 

EXPORTED  FROM  THE  UNITED  STATES  FROM  SEPTEMBER  i,  1859,  TO  JUNE  i, 

1894,  WITH  THE  AVERAGE  YEARLY  PRICE  OF  REFINED  AT  NEW  YORK. 


h,NDING 

JUNE  30. 

1860  .   . 

1861  .   . 


TOTAL 
GALLONS. 

1,300 

12,700 

400,000 


VALUE  AT 
NEW  YORK. 

$850 


1863      .......................  ..... 

1864.      ...................  22,210,369  10,782,689 

1865  ...................  25,495,849  16,563,413 

1866  ....................  50,987,341  24,830,887 

1867  .....  ...............  70,255,581  24,407,642 

1868  .....       ..............  79,456.888  21,810,676 

1869  ....................  100,636,684  31,127,433 

1873  ....................  113,735,294  32,668,960 

I8/I  ...................  149,892,691  36,894,810 

1872  ....................  145,171,583  34,058,39° 

1873  ....................  187,815,187  42,050,756 

1874  ...........  :  ........  247,806,483  41,245,815 

1875  ...................  221,955,308  30,078,568 

1876  ....................  243,650,152  32,915,786 

1877  ...................  309,198,914  61,789,438 

1878  ....................  338,841,303  46,574,974 

1879  ....................  378,310,010  40.305,249 

1880  ....................  423,964,699  36,2  8  625 

1881  ....................  397,660,262  40,315,609 

1882  ....................  559,954,590  51,232,706 

1883  ....................  505,931,622  44,9I3.°79 

1884  ....................  513,660,092  •  47,103,248 

1885  ....................  574,628,180  50,257,947 

1886  ...................  577,78i,752  50,199,844 

1887  ....  ................  592,803,267  46,824,933 

1888  ....................  578,351,638  47,042,409 

1889  ...................  616,195,459  49,913,677 

1890  ....................  664,491,498  51,403,089 

1891  ...................  710,124,077  52,026,734 

1892  ...................  "15,471,979  44,805,992 

1893  ..................  804,337,168  42,142,058 

1894  ...........  .  ........  908,281,968  41,499,806 

Totals     .................  11,829,482,888            11,224,157,192 


REFINKD, 
PER  GAL. 


$o  61% 

36% 


65 

s&A 
42% 


29% 

32^ 


09 

08 

072-6 

°8 

o8}/8 

08 

0714 

o6Y4 

07^ 


06% 

06 

05^ 


II. 


AMERICA    ON    DECK. 

NUMEROUS  INDICATIONS  OF  OIL  ON  THIS  CONTINENT — LAKE  OF  ASPHALTUM — 
PETROLEUM  SPRINGS  IN  NEW  YORK  AND  PENNSYLVANIA — How  HISTORY  is 
MANUFACTURED — PIONEERS  DIPPING  AND  UTILIZING  THE  PRECIOUS  FLUID — 
TOMBSTONE  LITERATURE— PATHETIC  EPISODE— SINGULAR  STRIKE— GEOLOGY 
TRIES  TO  EXPLAIN  A  KNOTTY  POINT. 


"  Near  the  Niagara  is  an  oil  spring  known  to  the  Indians." 

—Joseph  de  la  Roche  D'Allion,  A.  D.  1629. 

"  There  is  a  fountain  at  the  head  of  the  Ohio,  the  water  of  which  is  like  oil,  has  a  taste  of  iron 
and  seems  to  appease  pain."— Captain  de  Joncaire,  A.  D.  1721. 

"  It  is  light  bottled-up  for  tens  of  thousands  of  years— light  absorbed  by  plants  and  vegeta- 
bles. *  *  *  And  now  after  being  buried  long  ages,  that  latent  light  is  again  brought  forth 
and  liberated  and  made  to  work  for  human  purposes." — Stephenson. 


HE  LAND  Columbus  ran  against,  by 
anticipating  Horace  Greeley's  advice  to 
' '  Go  West, ' '  was  not  neglected  in  the 
lavish  distribution  of  petroleum.  It 
abounds  in  South  America,  the  West 
Indies,  the  United  States  and  Canada. 
The  most  extensive  and  phenomenal 
natural  fountain  of  petroleum  ever  known 
is  on  the  Island  of  Trinidad.  Hot  bitu- 
men has  filled  a  basin  four  miles  in  cir- 
cumference, three-quarters  of  a  mile  from 
the  sea,  estimated  to  contain  the  equiva- 
lent of  ten-millions  of  barrels  of  crude- 
oil.  The  liquid  boils  up  continually,  ob- 
serving no  holidays  or  Sundays,  seething 
and  foaming  at  the  center  of  the  lake,  cooling  and  thickening  as  it  recedes, 
and  finally  becoming  solid  asphaltum.  The  bubbling,  hissing,  steaming  cal- 
dron emits  a  sulphurous  odor,  perceptible  for  ten  or  twelve  miles  and  deci- 
dedly suggestive  of  the  orthodox  Hades.  Humboldt  in  1799  reported  his 
impressions  of  this  spontaneous  marvel,  in  producing  which  the  puny  hand  of 
man  had  no  share.  From  it  is  derived  the  dark,  tough,  semi-elastic  material, 
first  utilized  in  Switzerland  for  this  purpose,  which  paves  the  streets  of  scores 
of  cities.  Few  stop  to  reflect,  as  they  glide  over  the  noiseless  surface  on 
whirling  bicycles  or  behind  prancing  steeds,  that  the  smooth  asphaltum 
pavements  and  the  clear  "water-white"  in  the  piano-lamp  have  a  common 

13 


I4  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

parentage.      Yet  bloomers  and   pantaloons,    twin  creations    of  the   tailor,  or 
diamonds  and  coal,  twin  links  of  carbon,  are  not  related  more  closely. 

The  earliest  printed  reference  to  petroleum  in  America  is  by  Joseph  de  la 
Roche  D'Allion,  a  Franciscan  missionary  who  crossed  the  Niagara  river  from 
Canada  in  1629  and  wrote  of  oil,  in  what  is  now  New  York,  known  to  the 
Indians  and  by  them  given  a  name  signifying  "plenty  there."  Likely  this  was 
the  petroleum  occupying  cavities  in  fossils  at  Black  Rock,  below  Buffalo,  in 
sufficient  abundance  to  be  an  object  of  commerce.  Concerning  the  celebrated 
oil-spring  of  the  Seneca  Indians  near  Cuba,  N.  Y.,  which  D'Allion  may  also 
have  seen,  Prof.  Benjamin  Silliman  in  1833  said  : 

"  This  is  situated  in  the  western  part  of  the  county  of  Alleghany,  in  the  state  of  New  York. 
This  county  is  the  third  from  Lake  Erie  on  the-south  line  of  the  state,  the  counties  of  Cattaraugus 
and  Chautauqua  lying  west  and  forming  the  southwestern  termination  of  the  state  of  New  York. 
The  spring  is  very  near  the  line  which  divides  Alleghany  and  Cattaraugus.  *  *  *  The  country 
is  rather  mountainous,  but  the  road  running  between  the  ridges  is  very  good  and  leads  through 
a  cultivated  region  rich  in  soil  and  picturesque  in  scenery.  Its  geographical  formation  is  the 
same  as  that  which  is  known  to  prevail  in  the  western  region ;  a  silicious  sandstone  with  shale, 
and  in  some  places  limestone,  is  the  immediate  basis  of  the  country.  *  *  *  The  oil-spring  or 
fountain  rises  in  the  midst  of  a  marshy  ground.  It  is  a  muddy,  dirty  pool  of  about  eighteen  feet 
in  diameter  and  is  nearly  circular  in  form.  There  is  no  outlet  above  ground,  no  stream  flowing 
from  it,  and  it  is,  of  course,  a  stagnant  water,  with  no  other  circulation  than  than  which  springs 
from  the  changes  in  temperature  and  from  the  gas  and  petroleum  that  are  constantly  rising 
through  the  pool. 

"We  are  told  that  the  odor  of  petroleum  is  perceived  at  a  distance  in  approaching  the 
spring.  This  may  be  true  in  particular  states  of  the  wind,  but  we  did  not  distinguish  any  peculiar 
smell  until  we  arrived  on  the  edge  of  the  fountain.  Here  its  peculiar  character  became  very 
obvious.  The  water  is  covered  with  a  thin  layer  of  petroleum  or  mineral  oil,  as  if  coated  with 
dirty  molasses,  having  a  yellowish-brown  color. 

"  They  collect  the  petroleum  by  skimming  it  like  cream  from  a  milk-pan.  For  this  purpose 
they  use  a  broad,  flat  board,  made  thin  at  one  edge  like  a  knife ;  it  is  moved  flat  upon  and  just 
under  the  surface  of  the  water  and  is  soon  covered  by  a  coating  of  petroleum,  which  is  so  thick 
and  adhesive  that  it  does  not  fall  off,  but  is  removed  by  scraping  the  instrument  upon  the  lip  of  a 
cup.  It  has  then  a  very  foul  appearance,  but  it  is  purified  by  heating  and  straining  it  while  hot 
through  flannel.  It  is  used  by  the  people  of  the  vicinity  for  sprains  and  rheumatism  and  for  sores 
on  their  horses." 

The  "muddy,  dirty  pool"  was  included  in  an  Indian  reservation,  one  mile 
square,  leased  in  1860  by  Allen,  Bradley  &  Co.,  who  drove  a  pipe  into  the  bog. 
At  thirty  feet  oil  began  to  spout  to  the  tune  of  a-barrel-an-hour,  a  rhythm  not 
unpleasing  to  the  owners  of  the  venture.  The  flow  continued  several  weeks 
and  then  "stopped  short,  never  to  go  again."  Other  wells  followed  to  a 
greater  depth,  none  of  them  proving  sufficiently  large  to  give  the  field  an 
orchestra  chair  in  the  petroleum  arena. 

It  is  told  of  a  jolly  Cuban,  wearing  a  skull  innocent  of  garbage  as  Uncle 
Ned's,  who  "had  no  wool  on  the  top  of  his  head  in  the  place  where  the  wool 
ought  to  grow,"  that  he  applied  oil  from  the  "dirty  pool"  to  an  ugly  swelling 
on  the  apex  of  his  bare  cranium.  The  treatment  lasted  a  month,  by  which 
time  a  crop  of  brand-new  hair  had  begun  to  sprout.  The  welcome  growth 
meant  business  and  eventually  thatched  the  roof  of  the  happy  subject  with  a 
luxuriant  vegetation  that  would  have  turned  Paderewski,  Absalom,  or  the  most 
ambitious  foot-ball  kicker  green  with  envy !  Tittlebat  Titmouse,  over  whose 
excruciating  experiences  with  the  "  Cyanochaitanthropopoion  "  that  dyed  his 
locks  a  bright  emerald  readers  of  "Ten-Thousand  a  Year"  have  laughed 
consumedly,  was  "not  in  it"  compared  with  the  transformed  denizen  of  the 
pretty  village  nestling  amid  the  hills  of  the  Empire  State.  Those  inclined  to 
pronounce  this  a  bald-headed  fabrication  may  see  for  themselves  the  precise 


AMERICA    ON  DECK. 


A  BUCHANAN 


spot  the  mud-hole  furnishing  the  oil  occupied  prior  to  the  advent  of  the  prosaic, 
unsentimental  driving-pipe. 

Captain  de  Joncaire,  a  French  officer  in  colonial  days,  who  had  charge  of 
military  operations  on  the  Upper  Ohio  and  its  tributaries  in  1721,  reported  "a 
fountain  at  the  head  of  a  branch  of  the  Ohio,  the  water  of  which  is  like  oil." 
Undoubtedly  this  was  the  same  "fountain"  referred  to  in  the  Massachusetts 
Magazine  for  July,  1791,  as  follows : 

"  In  the  northern  part  of  Pennsylvania  is  a  creek  called  Oil  Creek,  which  empties  into  the 
Allegheny  river.  It  issues  from  a  spring  on  which  floats  an  oil  similar  to  that  called  Barbadoes 
tar,  and  from  which  one  may  gather  several  gallons  a  day.  The  troops  sent  to  guard  the  western 
posts  halted  at  this  spring,  collected  some  of  the  oil  and  bathed  their  joints  with  it.  This  gave 
them  great  relief  from  the  rheumatism,  with  which  they  were  afflicted." 

The  history  of  petroleum  in  America  commences  with  the  use  the  pioneer 
settlers  found  the  red-men  made  of  it  for  medicine  and  for  painting  their  dusky 
bodies.  The  settlers  adopted  its  medicinal  use  and  retained  for  various  afflu- 
ents of  the  Allegheny  the  Indian  name  of  Oil  Creek.  Both  natives  and  whites 
collected  the  oil  by  spreading  blankets  on  the  marshy  pools  along  the  edges  of 
the  bottom-lands  at  the  foot  of  steep  hill-sides  or  of  mountain-walls  that  hem 
in  the  valleys  supporting  coal-measures  above.  The  remains  of  ancient  pits  on 
Oil  Creek — the  Oil  Creek  ordained  to  become  a  household  word — lined  with 
timbers  and  provided  with  notched  logs  for  ladders,  show  how  for  generations 
the  aborigines  had  valued  and  stored  the  product.  Some  of  these  queer  reser- 
voirs, choked  with  leaves  and  dirt  accumulated  during  hundreds  of  years,  bore 
trees  two  centuries  old.  Many  of  them,  circular,  square,  oblong  and  oval, 
sunk  in  the  earth  fifteen  to  twenty  feet 
and  strongly  cribbed,  have  been  exca- 
vated. Their  number  and  systematic 
arrangement  attest  that  petroleum  was 
saved  in  liberal  quantities  by  a  race 
possessing  in  some  degree  the  elements 
of  civilization.  The  oil  has  preserved 
the  timbers  from  the  ravages  of  decay, 
"  to  point  a  moral  or  adorn  a  tale,"  and 
they  are  as  sound  to-day  as  when  cut 
down  by  hands  that  crumbled  into  dust 
ages  ago. 

Scientists  worry  and  perspire  over 
"the  mound-builders"  and  talk  glibly 
of  "a  superior  race  anterior  to  the 
Indians,"  while  ignoring  the  relics  of  a 
tribe  smart  enough  to  construct  endur- 
ing storehouses  for  petroleum.  People 
who  did  such  work  and  filled  such 
receptacles  with  oil  were  not  slouches 
who  would  sell  their  souls  for  whiskey 
and  their  forest  heritage  for  a  string  of 
glass-beads.  Did  they  penetrate  the 
rock  for  their  supply  of  oil,  or  skim  it 

drop  by  drop  from  the  waters  of  the  stream  ?  Who  were  they,  whence  came 
they  and  whither  have  they  vanished  ?  Surely  these  are  conundrums  to  tax  the 
ingenuity  of  imaginative  solvers  of  perplexing  riddles.  Shall  Macaulay's  New- 
Zealand  voyager,  after  viewing  the  ruins  of  London  and  flying  across  the  At- 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


lantic,  gaze  upon  the  deserted  oil-wells  of  Venango  county  a  thousand  years 
hence  and  wonder  what  strange  creatures,  in  the  dim  and  musty  past,  could 
have  bored  post-holes  so  deep  and  so  promiscuously  ?  Rip  Van  Winkle  was 
right  in  his  plaintive  wail :  "  How  soon  are  we  forgotten  !" 

The  renowned  "spring"  which  may  have  supplied  these  remarkable  vats 
was  located  in  the  middle  of  Oil  Creek,  on  the  McClintock  farm,  three  miles 
above  Oil  City  and  a  short  distance  below  Rouseville.  Oil  would  escape  from 
the  rocks  and  gravel  beneath  the  creek,  appearing  like  air-bubbles  until  it 
reached  the  surface  and  spread  a  thin  film  reflecting  all  the  colors  of  the  rain- 
bow. From  shallow  holes,  dug  and  walled  sometimes  in  the  bed  of  the  stream, 
the  oil  was  skimmed  and  husbanded  jealously.  The  demand  was  limited  and 
the  enterprise  to  meet  it  was  correspondingly  modest.  Nathanael  Gary,  the  first 

tailor  in  Franklin  and  owner  of  the 
tract  adjoining  the  McClintock,  ped- 
dled it  about  the  townships  early  in 
the  century,  when  the  population  was 
sparse  and  every  good  housewife  laid 
by  a  bottle  of  "Seneca  Oil  "  in  case 
of  accident  or  sickness.  Gary  would 
sling  two  jars  or  kegs  across  a  faithful 
horse,  belonging  to  the  class  of  Don 
Quixote's  "Rosinante"  and  too  se- 
date to  scare  at  anything  short  of  a 
knickerbockered  feminine  astride  a 
rubber-tired  wheel.  Mounting  the 
willing  steed,  which  carried  him 
steadily  as  "Jess"  bore  the  self- 
denying  physician  of  "Beside  the 
Bonnie  Brier  Bush,"  the  tailor-ped~ 
dler  went  his  rounds  at  irregular  in- 
tervals. Occasionally  he  took  a  ten- 
gallon  cargo  to  Pittsburg,  riding  with  it  eighty  miles  on  horseback  and  trading 
the  oil  for  cloth  and  groceries.  His  memory  should  be  cherished  as  the  first 
"shipper  "  of  petroleum  to  "the  Smoky  City,"  then  a  mere  cluster  of  log  and 
frame  buildings  in  a  patch  of  cleared  ground  surrounding  Fort  Pitt.  "  Things 
are  different  now." 

The  Augusts,  a  family  living  in  Cherrytree  township  and  remembered  only 
by  a  handful  of  old  residents,  followed  Gary's  example.  Their  stock  was  pro- 
cured from  springs  farther  up  Oil  Creek,  especially  one  near  Titusville,  which 
achieved  immortality  as  the  real  source  of  the  petroleum  development  that  has 
astounded  the  civilized  world.  They  sold  the  oil  for  "a  quarter-dollar  a  gill" 
to  the  inhabitants  of  neighboring  townships.  The  consumption  was  extremely 
moderate,  a  pint  usually  sufficing  a  household  for  a  twelvemonth.  Nature's 
own  remedy,  it  was  absolutely  pure  and  unadulterated,  a  panacea  for  "the 
thousand  natural  shocks  that  flesh  is  heir  to,"  and  positively  refused  to  mix 
with  water.  If  milk  and  water  were  equally  unsocial,  would  not  many  a  dis- 
penser of  the  lacteal  fluid  train  with  Othello  and  "  find  his  occupation  gone?" 
Don't  "read  the  answer  in  the  stars  ;"  let  the  overworked  pumps  in  thousands 
of  barnyards  reply ! 

No  latter-day  work  on  petroleum,  no  book,  pamphlet,  sketch  or  magazine 
article  of  any  pretensions  has  failed  to  reproduce  part  of  a  letter  purporting  to 


FIRST  OIL  "SHIPPED"  TO  PITTSBURG 


AMERICA    ON  DECK.  17 

have  been  sent  in  1750  to  General  Montcalm,  the  French  commander  who 
perished  at  Quebec  nine  years  later,  by  the  commander  of  Fort  Du  Quesne, 
now  Pittsburg.  A  sherry-cobbler  minus  the  sherry  would  have  been  pro- 
nounced less  insipid  than  any  oil-publication  omitting  the  favorite  extract.  It 
has  been  quoted  as  throwing  light  upon  the  religious  character  of  the  Indians 
and  offered  as  evidence  of  their  affinity  with  the  fire-worshippers  of  the  orient ! 
Official  reports  printed  and  endorsed  it,  ministers  embodied  it  in  missionary 
sermons  and  it  posed  as  infallible  history.  This  is  the  paragraph  : 

"  I  would  desire  to  assure  you  that  this  is  a  most  delightful  land.  Some  of  the  most  aston- 
ishing- natural  wonders  have  been  discovered  by  our  people.  While  descending  the  Allegheny, 
fifteen  leagues  below  the  mouth  of  the  Conewango  and  three  above  the  Venango,  we  were  invited 
"by  the  chief  of  the  Senecas  to  attend  a  religious  ceremony  of  his  tribe.  We  landed  and  drew  up 
our  canoes  on  a  point  where  a  small  stream  entered  the  river.  The  tribe  appeared  unusually 
solemn.  We  marched  up  the  stream  about  half-a-league,  where  the  company,  a  band,  it  appeared, 
had  arrived  some  days  before  us.  Gigantic  hills  begirt  ns  on  every  side.  The  scene  was  really 
sublime.  The  great  chief  then  recited  the  conquests  and  heroism  of  their  ancestors.  The  sur- 
face of  the  stream  was  covered  with  a  thick  scum,  which  upon  applying  a  torch  at  a  given  signal, 
burst  into  a  complete  conflagration.  At  the  sight  of  the  flames  the  Indians  gave  forth  the 
triumphant  shout  that  made  the  hills  and  valleys  re-echo  again.  Here,  then,  is  revived  the 
ancient  fire-worship  of  the  East ;  here,  then,  are  the  Children  of  the  Sun." 

The  style  of  this  popular  composition,  in  its  adaptation  to  the  occasion  and 
circumstances,  rivals  Chatterton'  s  unsurpassed  imitations  of  the  antique.  Mont- 
calm  was  a  gallant  soldier  who  lost  his  life  fighting  the  English  under  General 
Wolfe,  the  hero  whose  noble  eulogy  of  the  poet  Gray — "  I  would  rather  be  the 
author  of  the  '  Elegy  Written  in  a  Country  Churchyard '  than  the  captor  of 
Quebec  " — should  alone  crown  him  with  unfading  laurels.  The  commander  of 
Fort  Du  Quesne  also  "lived  and  moved  and  had  a  being."  The  Allegheny 
River  meanders  as  of  yore,  the  Conewango  empties  into  it  at  Warren,  the 
"Venango  "  is  the  French  Creek  which  joins  the  Allegheny  at  Franklin.  The 
"small  stream"  up  which  they  marched  "about  half-a-league"  was  Oil  Creek 
and  the  destination  was  the  oil-spring  of  Joncaire  and  "Nat  "  Gary.  The 
"gigantic  hills"  have  not  departed,  although  the  "thick  scum"  is  stored  in 
ircn  tanks.  But  neither  of  the  French  commanders  ever  wrote  or  read  or 
heard  of  the  much-quoted  correspondence,  for  the  excellent  reason  that  it  had 
not  been  evolved  during  their  sojourn  on  this  mundane  sphere  ! 

Franklin,  justly  dubbed  "the  nursery  of  great  men,"  gave  birth  to  the 
pretty  story.  Sixty-six  years  ago  a  bright  young  man  was  admitted  to  the  bar 
and  opened  a  law-office  in  the  attractive  hamlet  at  the  junction  of  the  Allegheny 
River  and  French  Creek.  He  soon  ranked  high  in  his  profession  and  in  1839 
was  appointed  judge  of  a  special  district-court,  created  to  dispose  of  accumu- 
lated business  in  Venango,  Crawford,  Erie  and  Mercer  counties.  The  same 
year  a  talented  divinity-student  was  called  to  the  pastorate  of  the  Presbyterian 
church  in  Franklin.  The  youthful  minister  and  the  new  judge  became  warm 
friends  and  cultivated  their  rare  literary  tastes  by  writing  for  the  village  paper, 
a  six-column  weekly.  Among  others  they  prepared  a  series  of  fictitious 
articles,  based  upon  the  early  settlement  of  Northwestern  Pennsylvania,  de- 
signed to  whet  the  public  appetite  for  historic  and  legendary  lore.  In  one  of 
these  sketches  the  alleged  letter  to  Montcalm  was  included.  Average  readers 
supposed  the  minute  descriptions  and  bold  narratives  were  rock-ribbed  facts, 
an  opinion  the  authors  did  not  care  to  controvert,  and  at  length  the  "French 
commander's  letter"  began  to  be  reprinted  as  actual,  bona-fide,  name-blown- 
in-the-bottle  history  ! 

One  of  the  two  writers   who  coined  this   interesting  "  fake  "  was   Hon. 


i8 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


R.   8NOWDEN. 


James  Thompson,  the  eminent  jurist,  who  learned  printing  in  Butler,  practiced 
law  in  Venango  county,  served  three  terms— the  last  as  speaker— in  the  Legis- 
lature and  one  in  Congress,  was  district-judge  six  years  and  sat  on  the  Supreme 

^^ •••^•iiii^^m  -       bench  fifteen  years,  five  of  them  as 

chief-justice  of  this  state.  Judge 
Thompson  removed  to  Erie  in 
1842  and  finally  to  Philadelphia. 
He  married  a  daughter  of  Rev. 
Nathanael  R.  Snowden,  first  pastor 
of  the  First  Presbyterian  church 
in  Harrisburg,  in  1794-1803,  and 
afterwards  master  of  a  noted  acad- 
emy at  Franklin.  Mr.  Snowden's 
wife  was  the  daughter  of  Dr.  Gus- 
tine,  a  survivor  of  the  frightful 
Wyoming  massacre.  Their  son, 
an  eminent  Franklin  physician  of 
early  times,  was  the  father  of  the 
late  Dr.  S.  Gustine  Snowden  and  of 
Major-General  George  R.  Snow- 
den, of  Philadelphia,  commander 
of  the  National-Guard  of  Pennsyl- 
vania. The  good  minister  died  in  Armstrong  county,  descending  to  the  grave 
as  a  shock  of  wheat  fully  ripe  for  the  harvest,  leaving  to  his  posterity  the  pre- 
cious legacy  of  a  good  example.  Let  his  memory  and  his  grave  be  kept  green. 

"What  is  death 

To  him  who  meets  it  with  an  upright  heart? 
A  quiet  haven,  where  his  shatter'd  bark 
Harbors  secure  ti'l  the  rough  storm  is  past ; 
Perhaps  a  passage  overhung  with  clouds, 
But  at  its  entrance,  a  few  leagues  beyond, 
Opening  to  kinder  skies  and  milder  suns 
And  seas  pacific  as  the  soul  that  seeks  them." 

Judge  Thompson's  literary  co-worker  was  the  Rev.  Cyrus  Dickson,  D.D., 
who  resigned  his  first  charge  in  1848,  settled  in  the  east  and  gained  distinction 
in  the  pulpit  and  as  a  forcible  writer.  How  thoroughly  these  kindred  spirits, 
now  happily  reunited  "beyond  the  smiling  and  the  weeping,"  must  have  en- 
joyed the  overwhelming  success  of  their  ingenious  plot  and  laughed  at  the 
easy  credulity  which  accepted  every  line  of  their  contributions  as  gospel  truth  ! 
They  could  not  fail  to  relish  the  efforts,  prompted  mainly  by  their  fanciful  scene 
on  Oil  Creek,  to  identify  as  Children  of  the  Sun  the  savage  braves  in  buckskin 
and  moccasins  whose  noblest  conception  of  heaven  was  an  eternal  surfeit  of 
dog-sausage ! 

Signs  of  petroleum  in  the  Keystone  state  were  not  confined  to  Oil  Creek. 
Ten  miles  westward,  in  water-wells  and  in  the  bed  and  near  the  mouth  of 
French  Creek,  the  indications  were  numerous  and  unmistakable.  The  first 
white  man  to  turn  them  to  account  was  Marcus  Hulings,  of  Franklin,  the  origi- 
nal Charon  of  Venango  county.  Each  summer  he  would  skim  a  quart  or  two 
of  "earth-oil "  from  a  tiny  pond,  formed  by  damming  a  bit  of  the  creek,  the 
fluid  serving  as  a  liniment  and  medicine.  This  was  the  small  beginning  of  one 
whose  relative  and  namesake,  two  generations  later,  was  to  rank  as  a  leading 
oil  millionaire.  Hulings  "ferried  "  passengers  across  the  unbridged  stream  in 


AMERICA    ON  DECR'. 


a  bark-canoe  and  plied  a  keel-boat  to  Pittsburg,  the  round  trip  frequently  re- 
quiring four  weeks.  Passengers  were  "few  and  far  between,  "  consequently 
a  book-keeper  and  a  treasurer  were  not  engaged  to  take  care  of  the  receipts. 
The  proprietor  of  the  canoe-ferry  cleared  a  number  of  acres,  raised  corn  and 
potatoes  and  lived  in  a  log  cabin,  not  far  from  the  site  of  the  brush-factory, 
which  stood  for  fifty  years  after  his  death.  Probably  he  was  buried  in  the  north- 
west corner  of  the  old  graveyard,  beside  his  wife  and  son,  of  whom  two  sunken 
headstones  record : 


memory  of 

Michael  Hulings  who 

departed  this  life:  the  91 

of  August,  1797.    Aged 

27  years,  i  moth  & 

14  days. 


Massar, 

wife  of 

Marcus  Hulings 

Died 

Feb.  9.  1813. 
Aged  67  yrs, 
2  ms  and  22  ds. 


In 
memory  of  James 
and  Catherine  Ha 
nne  Ho  departed 
this  life  Julys  1830 
JAMES  AGED  Two 
years  one  months, 
ten  days  CETHERIN 
E  AGED  two  months 
and  14  days. 

JANE  consort  of 
DAVID  KING 
who  departed  this 

life.    April  14  1829 
aged  31  years 
O  may  I  see  thy  tribes  rejoic 
and  aid  their  triumphs 
with  my  voice  this  all.  my 
Glory  Lord  to  be  joined  to 
thy  saints  and  near  to.  thee 

The  once  hallowed  resting-place  of  many  worthy  pioneers  sadly  needs  the 
kindly  ministrations  of  some  "  Old  Mortality  "  to  replace  broken  slabs,  restore 
illegible  inscriptions  and  brush  away  the  obnoxious  weeds.  Quaint  spelling 
and  lettering  and  curious  epitaphs  are  not  uncommon.  Observe  these  examples  : 

In  memory  of 

Samuel  Riddle,  Esq. 

Born  Aug.  4,  1821 

At  Scrubgrass. 

Died  May  28,  1853, 

At  Franklin, 

Venango  County,  Pa. 

Here  lies  an  honest  lawyer, 

Honored  and  respected  living. 

Lamented  and  mourned  dead. 

Trains  on  the  Lake  Shore  Railroad  thunder  past  the  lower  end  of  the  quiet 
"  God's  Acre,"  close  to  the  mounds  of  the  McDowells,  the  Broadfoots,  the  Bow- 
mans,  the  Hales  and  other  early  settlers,  but  the  peaceful  repose  of  the  dead 
can  be  disturbed  only  by  the  blast  of  Gabriel's  trumpet  on  the  resurrection 
morning. 

The  venerable  William  Whitman,  familiarly  called  "Doctor,"  over  whose 
grave  the  snows  of  twenty-five  long  years  have  drifted,  often  told  me  how,  when 
a  youngster,  he  carried  water  to  the  masons  building  Colonel  Alexander 
McDowell's  stone  house,  on  Elk  street.  He  hemmed  in  a  pool  on  the  edge  of 
French  Creek,  soaked  up  the  greasy  scum  with  a  piece  of  flannel,  wrung  out 
the  cloth  and  filled  several  bottles  with  dark-looking  oil.  The  masons  would 
swallow  doses  of  it,  rub  it  on  their  bruised  hands  and  declare  it  a  sovereign 
internal  and  external  remedy.  In  early  manhood  Mr.  Whitman  settled  in 
Canal  township,  eleven  miles  northwest  of  Franklin,  cultivated  a  farm  and 
reared  a  large  family.  It  was  the  dream  of  his  old  age  to  see  oil  taken  from 
his  own  land.  In  1866  two  wells  were  drilled  on  the  Williams  tract,  across  the 
road  from  Whitman's,  with  encouraging  prospects.  Depressed  prices  retarded 
operations  and  these  wells  remained  idle.  Four  years  later  my  uncle,  George 
Buchanan,  and  myself  drilled  on  the  Whitman  farm.  The  patriarch  watched  the 


20  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

progress  of  the  work  with  feverish  interest,  spending  hours  daily  about  the  rig. 
A  string  of  driving-pipe,  up  to  that  time  said  to  be  the  longest — 153  feet— ever 
needed  in  an  oil-well,  had  to  be  forced  down.  Three  feet  farther  a  vein  of 
sparkling  water,  tinged  with  sulphur,  spouted  above  the  pipe  and  it  has  flowed 
uninterruptedly  since.  The  heavy  tools  pierced  the  rock  rapidly  and  the 
delight  of  the  "Doctor"  was  unbounded.  He  felt  confident  a  paying  well 
would  result  and  waited  impatiently  for  the  decisive  test.  A  boy  longing  for 
Christmas  or  his  first  pair  of  boots  could 
not  be  more  keenly  expectant.  His  fondest 
wish  was  not  to  be  gratified.  He  took  sick 
and  died,  after  a  very  short  illness,  in  1870, 
four  days  before  the  well  was  through  the 
sand  and  pumping  at  the  rate  of  fifty  bar- 
rels per  diem ! 

This  singular  well  merits  a  brief  notice. 
From  the  first  sand,  not  a  trace  of  which 
was  met  in  the  two  wells  on  the  other  side 
of  the  road,  oil  and  gas  arose  through  the 
water  so  freely  that  drilling  was  stopped 
and  tubing  inserted.  In  twenty-four  hours 
the  well  yielded  fifty-eight  barrels  of  the 
blackest  lubricant  in  America,  28°  gravity, 
the  hue  of  a  stack  of  ebony  cats  and  with 
plenty  of  gas  to  illuminate  the  neighbor- 
hood. Subsiding  quickly,  the  tubing  was  drawn  and  the  hole  drilled  in  quest 
of  the  third  sand,  the  rock  which  furnished  the  lighter  petroleum  on  Oil  Creek. 
Eight  feet  were  found  seven-hundred  feet  towards  the  antipodes,  a  torpedo  was 
exploded,  the  tubing  was  put  back  and  the  well  produced  two  barrels  a  day  for 
a  year,  divided  between  the  sands  about  equally,  the  green  and  black  oils  com- 
ing out  of  the  pipe  side-by-side  and  positively  declining  to  merge  into  one. 
Other  wells  were  drilled  years  afterwards  close  by,  without  finding  the  jug- 
ular. Mr.  Whitman  sleeps  in  the  Baptist  churchyard  near  Hannaville,  the 
sleep  that  shall  have  no  awakening  until  the  Judgment  Day.  Mr.  Buchanan, 
who  operated  at  Rouseville,  Scrubgrass,  Franklin  and  Bradford,  left  the  oil- 
regions  six  years  ago  for  the  Black  Hills  and  he  is  "adding  to  his  pile"  in 
South  Dakota. 

Excavating  for  the  Franklin  canal  in  1832,  on  the  north  bank  of  French 
Creek,  opposite  "the  infant  industry"  of  Hulings  forty  years  previous,  the 
workmen  were  annoyed  by  a  persistent  seepage  of  petroleum,  execrating  it  as 
a  nuisance.  A  well  dug  on  the  flats  ten  years  later,  for  water,  encountered 
such  a  glut  of  oil  that  the  disgusted  wielder  of  the  spade  threw  up  his  job  and 
threw  his  besmeared  clothes  into  the  creek  !  When  the  oil  excitement  invaded 
the  county-seat  the  greasy  well  was  drilled  to  the  customary  depth  and  proved 
hopelessly  dry  !  At  Slippery  Rock,  in  Lawrence  county,  oil  exuded  abundantly 
from  the  sandy  banks  and  bed  of  the  creek,  failing  to  pan  out  when  wells  were 
put  down.  A  geological  expert  explains  it  in  this  manner  : 

"  'Surface  shows '  have  been  the  fascination  of  many.  The  places  of  most  copious  escape 
to  the  surface  were  regarded  as  the  favored  spots  where  '  the  drainage  from  the  coal-measures, 
in  defiance  of  the  laws  of  gravity  aud  hydro-dynamics,  had  obligingly  deposited  itself.  Such 
shows '  were  always  illusory.  A  great  '  surface  show  '  is  a  great  waste  ;  where  nature  plays  the 
spendthrift  she  retains  little  treasure  in  her  coffers.  The  production  of  petroleum  in  quantities 


AMERICA   ON  DECK.  21 

of  economical  importance  has  always  been  from  reservoirs  in  which  nature  has  been  hoarding  it 
up,  instead  of  making  a  superficial  and  deceptive  display  of  her  wealth." 

Applying  this  method,  the  place  to  find  petroleum  is  where  not  a  symptom 
of  it  is  visible  !  An  honest  Hibernian,  asked  his  opinion  of  a  notorious  falsifier, 
answered  that  "he  must  be  chock-full  ov  truth,  fur  bedad  he  niver  lets  any  ov 
it  git  out!"  The  above  explanation  is  of  this  stripe.  "  Flee  to  the  mountains 
of  Hepsidam  "  rather  than  attempt  to  bore  for  oil  in  localities  having  "shows" 
of  the  very  thing  you  are  after  !  These  dreadfully  deceptive  "shows"  show  that 
the  oil  has  got  out  and  emptied  the  "reservoirs  in  which  nature  had  been  hoard- 
ing it  up  !"  This  is  a  pretty  rough  joke  on  poor  deluded  nature  !  How  could 
these  "surface  shows"  have  strayed  off  anyhow,  unless  connected  with  reser- 
voirs of  genuine  petroleum  at  the  outset?  The  first  wells  on  Oil  Creek  and  at 
Franklin  were  drilled  beside  "surface  shows"  which  revealed  the  existence  of 
petroleum  and  supplied  Gary,  August,  McClintock  and  Hulings  with  the  cov- 
eted oil.  These  wells  produced  petroleum  ' '  in  quantities  of  economical  impor- 
tance," demonstrating  that  "such  shows  were  not  always  illusory."  Is  nature 
buncoing  petroleum-seekers  by  hanging  out  a  Will-o'-the-Wisp  signal  where 
there  is " little  treasure  in  her  coffers?"  The  failures  at  Slippery  Rock  and 
divers  other  places  resulted  from  the  fact  that  the  seepages  had  traveled  con- 
siderable distances  to  find  breaks  in  the  rocks  that  would  permit  of  the  "most 
copious  escape." 

Central  and  South  America  are  fairly  stocked  with  petroleum  indications. 
In  the  early  days  of  the  Panama  Railroad  and  during  the  construction  of  the 
ill-fated  canal  numerous  efforts  were  made  to  explore  the  coal  regions  of  the 
Atlantic,  in  proximity  to  the  ports  of  Colon  and  Panama.  These  researches  led 
to  the  discovery  of  bituminous  shales  and  lignite  near  the  port  of  Boca  del 
Toro,  on  the  Caribbean  Sea.  The  map  of  Colombia  shows  a  great  indenture 
on  the  Atlantic  Coast  of  the  department  of  Cauca,  formed  by  the  Gulfo  de 
Uraba,  or  Darian  del  Nord.  Into  this  gulf  flow  the  Atrato,  Arboletes,  Punta  de 
Piedra  and  many  small  streams.  Explorations  on  the  Gulf  of  Uraba  and  its 
tributaries  disclosed  extensive  strata  of  "oil  rock"  and  "oil  springs"  near  the 
Rio  Arboletes.  The  largest  of  forty  of  these  springs  has  a  twelve-inch  crater, 
which  gushes  oil  sufficient  to  fill  a  six-inch  pipe.  Near  this  Brobdignagian  spring 
is  a  petroleum-pond  sixty  feet  in  diameter  and  from  three  to  ten  feet  deep. 
The  flow  of  these  oil-springs  deserves  the  attention  of  geologists  and  investors. 
They  lie  at  a  distance  of  one  to  three  miles  from  the  shores  of  the  gulf.  The  oil 
is  remarkably  pure,  passing  through  a  bed  of  coral,  which  seems  to  act  as  a  filter 
and  refiner.  A  proper  survey  of  the  oil-region  of  the  Uraba  would  be  interesting 
from  a  scientific  and  an  industrial  standpoint.  The  proper  development  of  its 
possibilities  might  result  in  the  control  of  the  petroleum  market  of  South 
America.  The  climate  is  too  sultry  for  the  display  of  seal  sacques  and  fur  over- 
coats, a  palm-hat  constituting  the  ordinary  garb  of  the  average  citizen.  This 
providential  dispensation  eliminates  dudes  and  tailor-made  girls,  stand-up  collars 
and  bifurcated  skirts  from  the  domestic  economy  of  the  happy  Isthmians. 

In  the  canton  of  Santa  Elena,  Ecuador,  embracing  the  entire  area  of  country 
between  the  hot  springs  of  San  Vicinte  and  the  Pacific  coast,  petroleum  is  found 
in  abundance.  It  is  of  a  black  color,  its  density  varies,  it  is  considered  su- 
perior to  the  Pennsylvania  product  and  is  entirely  free  from  offensive  odor. 
Little  has  been  done  towards  working  these  wells.  The  people  are  unacquainted 
with  the  proper  method  of  sinking  them  and  no  well  has  exceeded  a  few  feet 
in  depth.  Geologists  think,  when  the  strata  of  alumina  and  rock  are  pierced, 


22  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

reservoirs  will  be  found  in  the  huge  cavities  formed  by  volcanic  convulsions  of 
the  Andes. 

From  the  Chira  to  the  Fumbes  river,  a  desert  waste  one-hundred-and-eighty 
miles  in  length  and  fifteen  miles  in  width,  lying  along  the  coast  between  the 
Pacific  ocean  and  the  Andes,  the  oil-field  of  Peru  is  believed  to  extend.  For 
two  centuries  oil  has  been  gathered  in  shallow  pits  and  stored  in  vats,  precisely 
as  in  Pennsylvania.  The  burning  sun  evaporated  the  lighter  parts,  leaving  a 
glutinous  substance,  which  was  purified  and  thickened  to  the  consistency  of 
sealing-wax  by  boiling.  It  was  shipped  to  southern  ports  in  boxes  and  used  as 
glazing  for  the  inside  of  Aguardiente  jars.  The  Spanish  government  monopo- 
lized the  trade  until  1830,  when  M.  Lama  purchased  the  land.  In  1869  Blanchard 
C.  Dean  and  Rollin  Thorne,  Americans,  "  denounced  "  the  mine,  won  a  lawsuit 
brought  by  Lama  and  drilled  four  wells  two-hundred-and-thirty  feet  deep,  a 
short  distance  from  the  beach.  Each  well  yielded  six  to  ten  barrels  a  day,  which 
deeper  drilling  in  1871-2  augmented  largely.  Frederic  Prentice,  the  enterprising 
Pennsylvania  operator,  secured  an  enormous  grant  in  1870,  bored  several  wells — 
one  a  thousand-barreler — erected  a  refinery,  supplied  the  city  of  Lima  with  ker- 
osene and  exported  considerable  quantities  to  England  and  Australia.  The  war 
with  Chili  compelled  a  cessation  of  operations  for  some  years.  Dr.  Tweddle, 
who  had  established  a  refinery  at  Franklin,  tried  to  revive  the  Peruvian  fields  in 
1887-8.  He  drilled  a  number  of  wells,  refined  the  output,  enlisted  New  York 
capital  and  shipped  cargoes  of  the  product  to  San  Francisco.  The  district  has 
been  rather  quiet  of  late,  but  qualified  judges  have  no  doubt  that  "  in  thesweet- 
bye-and-bye ' '  the  oleaginous  goose  may  hang  altitudinum  in  Peru. 


THE  BABY  HAS  GROWN. 

The  petroleum  industry  is  the  one  circus  bigger  inside  the  canvas  than  on 
the  posters. 

A  larger  percentage  of  the  oil  product  of  the  United  States  is  sent  abroad 
than  of  any  other  except  cotton,  while  nearly  every  home  in  the  land  is  blessed 
with  petroleum's  beneficent  light. 

If  needs  be  petroleum  may  well  be  defiant ; 

The  baby  has  grown  to  be  earth's  greatest  giant. 

Beginning  with  1866,  the  exports  of  illuminating  oils  were  doubled  in  1868, 
again  in  1871,  again  in  1877  and  again  in  1891.  The  average  exports  per  week 
in  1894  were  as  much  as  for  the  entire  year  of  1864.  The  world  has  reason  to 
be  thankful  for  Pennsylvania  petroleum,  which  has  a  wider  sale  than  any  other 
American  product. 

Breadstuff's  and  cotton,  iron  and  coal 
All  have  been  distanc'd  ;  oil  has  the  pole. 

From  23,000,000  gallons  in  1864  the  exports  of  Pennsylvania  petroleum 
have  multiplied  thirty  times.  The  total  exports  for  the  first  three  months  of 
1896  foot  up  195,637,153  gallons,  valued  at  $12,389,384.  For  the  nine  months 
ending  March  31,  1896,  they  amounted  to  650,676,974  gallons,  valued  at  $45,- 
563,750.  For  the  same  period  of  1895  the  exports  were  671, 196, 133  gallons  and 
their  value,  $31,554,308.  Not  less  impressive  is  the  marvelous  reduction  in  the 
price  of  refined,  so  that  the  oil  has  found  a  welcome  everywhere.  Export  oil 
averaged  in  1861,  6il/2  cents  per  gallon  ;  in  1871,  23^  cents  per  gallon;  in  1881, 
8  cents  per  gallon ;  in  1891,  6^j  cents  per  gallon ;  in  1892,  6  cents  per  gallon  ; 
in  1894,  5  1-6  cents  per  gallon,  or  one-twelfth  that  in  1861.  But  this  decrease, . 
great  as  it  is,  does  not  represent  the  real  reduction  in  the  price  of  oil,  as  the 
cost  of  the  barrel  is  included  in  these  prices.  A  gallon  of  bulk-oil  cost  in  1861 
not  less  than  58  cents;  in  1894,  not  more  than  3%  cents,  or  hardly  one-seven- 
teenth. In  January,  1861,  the  price  was  75  cents  ;  in  January,  1894,  one-twenty- 
fifth  that  of  thirty-three  years  before.  The  consumers  have  received  the  benefit 
of  constant  improvements  and  reductions  in  prices,  while  twelve-hundred-mil- 
lion dollars  have  come  from  abroad  to  this  country  for  petroleum. 

It  takes  oil  to  make  a  showing 

In  the  line  of  rapid  growing, 

And  make  others  quit  their  blowing. 

The  capital  invested  in  the  petroleum-business  has  increased  from  one- 
thousand  dollars,  raised  in  1859  to  drill  the  first  well  in  Pennsylvania,  to  five- 
hundred-millions.  It  is  just  as  easy  to  say  five-hundred-million  dollars  as  five- 
hundred-million  grains  of  sand,  but  the  possibilities  of  such  a  sum  of  money 
afford  material  for  endless  flights  of  the  imagination.  Thirty-thousand  miles  of 
pipe-lines  handle  the  output  most  expeditiously,  conveying  it  to  the  seaboard  at 
less  than  teamsters  used  to  receive  for  hauling  it  a  half-mile.  Ten-thousand 
tank-cars  have  been  engaged  in  transportation.  Seventy-five  bulk-steamers 
and  fleets  of  sailing-vessels  carry  refined  from  Philadelphia  and  New  York  to 
the  remotest  ports  in  Europe,  Africa  and  Asia.  Astral  Oil  and  Standard  White 
have  penetrated  "wherever  a  wheel  can  roll  or  a  camel's  foot  be  planted."  In 
Pennsylvania  thirty-five-million  barrels  have  been  produced  and  four-thousand 
wells  drilled  in  a  single  year.  Add  to  this  the  results  of  operations  in  Ohio, 
West  Virginia,  Indiana,  Colorado,  Kansas,  Wyoming  and  California,  and  the 
whole  race  must  acknowledge  that  "  Petroleum  is  King." 
3 


III. 


HEARING   THE    DAWN. 


SALT-  WATER  HELPING  SOLVE  THE  PROBLEM  —  KIER'S  IMPORTANT  EXPERIMENTS 
—REMARKABLE  SHAFT  AT  TARENTUM  —  WEST  VIRGINIA  AND  OHIO  TO  THE 
FRONT  —  THE  LANTERN  FIEND  —  WHAT  AN  OLD  MAP  SHOWED  —  KENTUCKY 
PLAYS  TRUMPS—  THE  FATHER  OF  FLOWING  WELLS^SUNDRY  EXPERIENCES 
AND  OBSERVATIONS  AT  VARIOUS  POINTS. 


"A  salt-well  dug  in  1814,  to  the  depth  of  four  hundred  feet,  near  Marietta,  discharged  oil  peri- 
odically  at  intervals  of  two  to  four  days." — Dr.  Hildredth,  A.  D.  1819. 

"Nearly  all  the  Kanawha  salt-wells  have  contained  more  or  less  petroleum."— Dr.J.  P.  Hale, 
A.  D.  1825. 

"There  are  numerous  springs  of  this  mineral  oil  in  various  regions  of  the  West  and  South." — 
Prof.  B.  SiUiman,  A.  D.  1833. 


HILE  cannel  coal  in  the  western  end  of  Penn- 
sylvania and  other  sections  of  the  country, 
bitumen  and  shales  from  the  Gulf  of  Mex- 
ico to  Lake  Huron,  chapapote  or  mineral 
pitch  in  Cuba  and  San  Domingo,  oozings  in 
Peru  and  Ecuador,  asphaltum  in  Canada 
and  oil-springs  in  Columbia  and  a  half- 
dozen  states  of  the  Union  from  California 
to  New  York  denoted  the  presence  of  pe- 
troleum over  the  greater  part  of  this  hem- 
isphere, wells  bored  for  salt  were  leading 
factors  in  bringing  about  its  full  develop- 
ment. Scores  of  these  wells  pumped  more 
or  less  oil  long  before  it  "entered  into  the 
mind  of  man"  to  utilize  the  unwelcome  in- 
truder. Indeed,  so  often  were  brine  and 

petroleum  found  in  the  same  geological  formation  that  scientists  ascribed  to 
them  a  kindred  origin.  The  first  borings  to  establish  this  peculiarity  were  on 
the  Kanawha  River,  in  West  Virginia,  a  state  destined  to  play  an  important  part 
in  oleaginous  affairs.  Dr.  J.  P.  Hale,  a  reputable  authority,  claims  oil  appeared 
in  the  deep  salt-wells  of  RufFner  Brothers,  who  began  operations  in  1806,  causing 
much  annoyance.  His  account  continues : 

"  Neary  all  the  Kanawha  salt-wells  have  contained  more  or  less  petroleum,  and  some  of  the 
deeper  wells  a  considerable  flow.  Many  persons  now  think,  trusting  to  their  recollections,  that 
some  of  the  wells  afforded  as  much  as  twenty-five  to  fifty  barrels  per  day.  This  was  allowed  to 
flow  over  from  the  top  of  the  salt  cisterns  to  the  river,  where,  from  its  specific  gravity,  it  spread 
over  a  large  surface,  and  by  its  beautiful  iridescent  hues  and  not  very  savory  odor  could  be  traced 
for  many  miles  down  the  stream.  It  was  from  this  that  the  river  received  the  nickname  of  'Old 
Greasy,'  by  which  it  was  long  known  by  Kanawha  boatmen  and  others." 

25 


26  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

At  the  mouth  of  Hawkinberry  Run,  three  miles  north  of  Fairmount,  in 
Marion  county,  a  well  for  salt  was  put  down  in  1829  to  the  depth  of  six  hundred 
feet.  "A  stinking  substance  gave  great  trouble,"  an  owner  reported,  "forming 
three  or  four  inches  on  the  salt-water  tank,  which  was  four  feet  wide  and  sixteen 
feet  long. ' '  They  discovered  the  stuff  would  burn,  dipped  it  off  with  buckets  and 
consumed  it  for  fuel  under  the  salt-pan.  J.  J.  Burns  in  1865  leased  the  farm, 
drilled  the  abandoned  well  deeper,  stuck  the  tools  in  the  hole  and  had  to  quit 
after  penetrating  sixty  feet  of  "a  fine  grit  oil  rock."  Mr.  Burns  wrote  in  1871 
regarding  operations  in  Marion  : 

"  The  second  well  put  down  in  this  county  was  about  the  year  1835,  on  the  West  Fork  River, 
just  below  what  is  now  known  as  the  Gaston  mines.  The  well  was  sunk  by  a  Mr.  Hill,  of  Arm- 
strong county,  Pa.,  who  found  salt  water  of  the  purest  quality  and  in  a  great  quantity,  same  as  in 
the  first  well.  He  died  just  after  the  well  was  finished,  so  nothing  was  done  with  it.  About  the 
time  this  well  wis  completed  one  was  drilled  in  the  Morgan  settlement,  just  below  Rivesville. 
Salt  water  was  ound  with  great  quantities  of  gas.  Twenty-five  years  since  the  farmers  on  Little 
Bingamon  Creek  formed  a  company  and  drilled  a  well — I  think  to  a  depth  of  eight-hundred  feet — 
in  which  they  claimed  to  have  found  oil  in  paying  quantities.  You  can  go  to  it  to-day  and  get  oil 
out  of  it.  The  president  told  me  he  saw  oil  spout  out  of  the  tubing  forty  or  fifty  feet,  just  as  they 
started  the  pump  to  test  it.  The  company  got  to  quarreling  among  themselves,  some  of  the  stock- 
holders died  and  part  of  the  stock  got  into  the  hands  of  minor  heirs,  so  nothing  was  done  with  the 
enterprise." 

Similar  results  attended  other  salt-wells  in  West  Virginia.  The  first  oil- 
speculators  were  Bosworth,  Wells  &  Co.,  of  Marietta,  Ohio,  who  as  early  as 
1843  bought  shipments  of  two  to  five  barrels  of  crude  from  Virginians  who 
secured  it  on  the  Hughes  River,  a  tributary  of  the  Little  Kanawha.  This  was 
sold  for  medical  purposes  in  Pittsburg,  Baltimore,  New  York  and  Philadel- 
phia. Two  of  the  Pittsburg  firms  handling  it  were  Schoomaker  &  Co.  and 
B.  A.  Fahnestock. 

Notable  instances  of  this  kind  occurred  on  the  Allegheny  River,  opposite 
Tarentum,  twenty  miles  above  Pittsburg,  as  early  as  1809.  Wells  sunk  for 
brine  to  supply  the  salt-works  were  troubled  with  what  the  owners  called  ''odd, 
mysterious  grease."  Samuel  M.  Kier,  a  Pittsburg  druggist,  whose  father 
worked  some  of  these  wells,  conceived  the  idea  of  saving  the  '  'grease, ' '  which 
for  years  had  run  waste,  and  in  1846  he  bottled  it  as  a  medicine.  He  knew  it 
had  commercial  and  medicinal  value  and  spared  no  exertions  to  introduce  it 
widely.  He  believed  implicitly  in  the  greenish  fluid  taken  from  his  salt  wells, 
at  first  as  a  healing  agent  and  farther  on  as  an  illuminant.  A  bottle  of  the  oil, 
corked  and  labeled  by  Kier's  own  hands,  lies  on  my  desk  at  this  moment,  in  a 
wrapper  dingy  with  age  and  redolent  of  crude.  A  four-page  circular  inside 
recites  the  good  qualities  of  the  specific  in  gorgeous  language  P.  T.  Barnum 
himself  would  not  have  scorned  to  father.  For  example  : 

"  Kier's  Petroleum,  or  Rock  Oil,  Celebrated  for  its  Wonderful  Curative  Powers.    A  Natural 
Remedy  !    Procured  from  a  Well  in  Allegany  Co.,  Pa.,  Four  Hundred  Feet  below  the  Earth's  Sur- 
face.   Put  up  and  Sold  by  Samuel  M.  Kier,  363  Liberty  Street,  Pittsburgh,  Pa. 
"  The  healthful  balm,  from  Nature's  secret  spring, 
The  bloom  of  health  and  life  to  man  will  bring  ; 
As  from  her  depths  this  magic  liquid  flows, 
To  calm  our  sufferings  and  assuage  our  woes. 

"  The  Petroleum  has  been  fully  tested!  It  was  placed  before  the  public  as  A  REMEDY  OF 
WONDERFUL  EFFICACY.  Every  one  not  acquainted  with  its  virtues  doubted  its  healing  qualities. 
The  cry  of  humbug  was  raised  against  it.  It  had  some  friends— those  who  were  cured  through  its 
wonderful  agency.  Those  spoke  in  its  favor.  The  lame  through  its  instrumentality  were  made  to 
walk— the  blind  to  see.  Those  who  had  suffered  for  years  under  the  torturing  pains  of  RHEUMA- 
TISM, GOUT  AND  NEURALGIA  were  restored  to  health  and  usefulness.  Several  who  were  blind 


NEAR  ING    THE  DAWN.  27 

were  made  to  see.  If  you  still  have  doubts,  go  and  ask  those  who  have  been  cured  !  *  *  *  We 
have  the  witnesses,  crowds  of  them,  who  will  testify  in  terms  stronger  than  we  can  write  them  to 
the  efficacy  of  this  remedy  ;  cases  abandoned  by  physicians  of  unquestionable  celebrity  have  been 
made  to  exclaim,  "THIS  Is  THE  MOST  WONDERFUL  REMEDY  YET  DISCOVERED!"  *  *  *  Its 
transcendent  power  to  heal  MUST  and  WILL  become  known  and  appreciated.  *  *  *  The  Petro- 
leum is  a  Natural  Remedy ;  it  is  put  up  as  it  flows  from  the  bosom  of  the  earth,  without  anything 
being  added  to  or  taken  from  it.  It  gets  its  ingredients  from  the  beds  of  substances  which  it 
passes  over  in  its  secret  channel.  They  are  blended  together  in  such  a  way  as  to  defy  all  human 
competition.  *  *  *  Petroleum  will  continue  to  be  used  and  applied  as  a  Remedy  as  long  as  man 
continues  to  be  afflicted  with  disease.  Its  discovery  is  a  new  era  in  medicine." 

A  host  of  certificates  of  astonishing  cases  of  curable  and  incurable  ailments, 
from  blindness  to  colds,  followed  this  preliminary  announcement.  The  "  rem- 
edy "  was  trundled  about  by  agents  in  vehicles  elaborately  gilt  and  painted  with 
representations  of  the  Good  Samaritan  ministering  to  a  wounded  Hebrew  writh- 
ing in  agony  under  a  palm-tree.  Two  barrels  of  oil  a  day  were  sold  at  fifty 
cents  a  half-pint.  The  expense  of  bottling  and  peddling  it  consumed  the  bulk 
of  the  profits.  Kier  experimented  with  it  for  light,  about  1848,  burning  it  at  his 
wells  and  racking  his  fertile  brain  for  some  means  to  get  rid  of  the  offensive 
smoke  and  odor.  To  be  entirely  successful  the  oil  must  have  some  other  than 
this  crude  form.  The  tireless  experimenter  went  to  Philadelphia  to  consult  a 
chemist,  who  advised  distillation,  without  a  hint  as  to  the  necessary  apparatus. 
Fitting  a  kettle  with  a  cover  and  a  worm,  the  first  outcome  of  the  embryo  re- 
finer's one-barrel  still  was  a  dark  substance  little  superior  to  the  crude.  Learn- 
ing to  manage  the  fires  so  as  not  to  send  the  oil  over  too  rapidly,  by  twice  dis- 
tilling he  produced  an  article  the  color  of  cider,  which  had  a  horrible  smell,  as 
he  knew  nothing  of  the  treatment  with  acids. 

Slight  changes  in  the  camphene  lamp  enabled  him  to  burn  the  distillate 
without  smoke.  Improvements  in  the  lamp,  especially  the  addition  of  the 
"  Virna  burner, "  and  in  the  quality  of  the  fluid  brought  the  "  carbon  oil,"  as  it 
was  usually  termed,  to  a  goodly  measure  of  perfection.  One  lot  of  oil  used  in 
these  experiments  was  a  purchase  of  six  barrels  in  March,  1853,  from  Charles 
Lockart,  now  an  officer  of  the  Standard  Oil  Company  in  Pittsburg.  It  came 
from  the  Huff  well,  across  the  river  from 
Tarentum.  "  Carbon  oil ' '  sold  readily  for  a 
dollar-fifty  per  gallon  and  provided  a  market 
for  all  the  petroleum  the  salt-wells  in  the  vi- 
cinity could  produce.  The  day  was  dawning 
and  the  great  light  of  the  nineteenth  century 
had  been  foreshadowed  in  the  broad  com- 
monwealth that  was  to  send  it  forth  on  its 
shining  mission. 

Samuel  M.  Kier  slumbers  in  Allegheny 
cemetery,  resting  in  peace  "after  life's  fitful 
fever.  "He  was  the  first  to  appreciate  the  val- 
ue of  petroleum  and  to  purify  it  by  ordinary 
refining.  His  product  was  in  brisk  demand 
for  illuminating  purposes.  He  invented  a 
lamp  with  a  four-pronged  burner,  arranged 
to  admit  air  and  give  a  steady  light.  If  he  SAMUEL  M.  KIER. 

failed  to  reap  the  highest  advantage  from  his  researches,  to  patent  his  process 
and  to  sink  wells  for  petroleum  alone,  he  paved  the  way  for  others,  enlarged  the 
field  of  the  product's  usefulness  and  by  his  labors  suggested  its  extensive  devel- 


28  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

opment.  Has  not  he  earned  a  monument  more  enduring  than  brass  or  marble? 
These  operations  at  Tarentum  and  Pittsburg  led  to  an  extraordinary  attempt 
to  fathom  the  petroleum  basin  by  digging  to  the  oil-bearing  rock  !  Through 
Kier's  experiments  the  crude  had  become  worth  from  fifty  cents  to  one  dollar 
a  gallon.  Among  the  owners  of  Tarentum's  salt-wells  was  Thomas  Donnelly, 
who  sold  his  well  on  the  Humes  farm  to  Peterson  &  Irwin.  The  senior  partner, 
ex-Mayor  Louis  Peterson,  of  Allegheny,  lived  until  recently  to  recount  his  inter, 
esting  experiences  with  the  coming  light.  He  thought  the  Donnelly  well,  which 
produced  salt-water  only,  if  enlarged  and  pumped  vigorously,  would  produce  oil- 
Humes  received  twenty-thousand  dollars  for  his  farm.  The  hole  was  reamed  out 
and  yielded  five  barrels  of  petroleum  a  day.  This  was  in  1856.  A  specimen 
sent  to  Baltimore  was  used  successfully  in  oiling  wool  at  the  carding-mills  and 
the  total  production  was  shipped  to  that  city  for  eight  years.  Eastern  capitalists 
bought  the  farm  and  well  in  1864,  organized  "  The  Tarentum  Salt  and  Oil  Com- 
pany" and  determined  to  dig  a  shaft  down  to  the  source  of  supply  !  The  wells 
were  four-hundred  to  five-hundred  feet  deep.  The  officers  of  the  company 
argued  that  it  was  feasible  to  reach  that  far  into  the  bowels  of  the  earth  with 
pick  and  shovel  and  discover  a  monstrous  cave  of  brine  and  oil !  They  picked 
a  spot  twenty  rods  from  the  Donnelly  well,  sent  to  England  for  skilled  miners 
and  started  a  shaft  about  eight  feet  square.  Over  two  years  were  employed 
and  forty  thousand  dollars  spent  in  sinking  this  shaft.  Heavy  timbers  walled 
the  upper  portion,  the  hard  rock  below  needing  none.  The  water  was  pumped 
through  iron  pipes,  nine  men  formed  each  shift  and  the  work  progressed  merrily 
to  the  depth  of  four-hundred  feet.  Then  the  salt-water  in  the  Donnelly  well  was 
affected  by  the  fresh-water  in  the  shaft,  losing  half  its  strength  whenever  the 
latter  was  let  stand  a  few  hours,  showing  their  intimate  connection  by  veins  or 
crevices.  Mr.  Peterson  said  of  it : 

"  The  digging  of  the  shaft  was  finally  abandoned  in  the  darkest  period  of  the  war,  from  the 
necessities  of  the  time.  A  New  Yorker  named  Ferris,  and  Wm.  McKeown,  of  Pittsburg,  bought 
the  property,  shaft  and  all.  The  daring  piece  of  engineering  was  neglected  and  finally  com. 
menced  to  fill  up  with  cinders  and  dirt,  until  at  last  it  was  level  again  with  the  surface  of  the 
ground.  You  may  walk  over  it  to-day  and  I  could  point  it  out  to  you  if  I  was  up  there.  Dig  it 
out  and  you  will  find  those  iron  pipes  and  timbers  still  there,  just  as  they  were  originally  put  in." 

Dyed-in-the-wool  Tarentumites  insist  that  natural  gas  caused  the  suspen- 
sion of  work,  flowing  into  the  shaft  at  such  a  gait  that  the  miners  refused  to  risk 
the  chances  of  a  speedy  trip  to  Kingdom  Come  by  suffocation  or  the  ignition  of 
the  subtile  vapor.  This  was  the  case  with  two  shafts  at  Tidioute  and  Petro- 
leum Centre,  neither  of  them  nearly  the  depth  of  "the  daring  piece  of  engineer- 
ing" which  "set  the  pace"  for  enterprises  of  this  novel  brand.  The  New  York 
Enterprise  and  Mining  Company  projected  the  former,  intending  to  sink  a  shaft 
eight  feet  by  twelve  to  the  third  sand  and  tunnel  the  rock  for  petroleum  by  whole- 
sale. The  shaft  reached  oil-producing  sand  at  one-hundrecl-and-sixty  feet. 
The  miners  worked  in  squads,  eight-hour  turns.  Holes  had  been  drilled  into 
the  rock  at  various  angles  and  a  lot  of  conglomerate  brought  to  the  surface. 
Once  a  short  delay  occurred  in  changing  squads,  during  which  the  air-pump) 
employed  to  exhaust  the  gases  from  the  pit  and  supply  pure  ozone  from  above, 
was  let  stand  idle.  Mr.  Hart  was  seated  on  a  timber  across  the  shaft  when  the 
men  were  ready  to  go  down.  As  was  the  custom,  a  man  dropped  a  taper  into 
the  opening  to  test  the  air.  Natural  gas  had  filled  the  shaft  and  it  ignited  from 
the  burning  torch,  causing  a  terrific  explosion.  The  workmen  were  thrown  in  all 
directions  and  lay  stunned  and  burned.  When  they  regained  conciousness  Hart 


NEAR  ING    THE  DAWN. 


29 


was  nowhere  to  be  seen  and  flames  rose  from  the  mouth  of  the  pit  to  the  tree-tops. 
Hart's  body  was  eventually  recovered  from  the  bottom  of  the  shaft,  horribly 
mangled  and  charred.  Work  was  abandoned  and  the  hole  was  partly  filled  up 
and  covered,  none  caring  to  pry  farther  into  the  petroleum  secrets  of  nature. 
Were  meddlers  who  seek  to  poke  their  noses  into  the  secrets  of  other  people 
dealt  with  thus  summarily,  what  a  thinning  out  of  the  population  there  would  be  ! 

Peterson  &  Irwin's  treatment  of  the  Donnelly  well  brings  out  clearly  that 
the  sole  object  was  to  procure  oil.  This  is  important,  in  view  of  the  claim 
that  the  first  well  drilled  exclusively  for  petroleum  was  put  down  in  1859.  Prac- 
tically the  two  Pittsburgers  anticipated  this  by  three  years,  a  circumstance  to 
remember  when  considering  the  varied  events  which  led  up  to  the  petroleum 
development. 

On  an  old  map  of  the  United  States,  printed  in  England  in  1787,  the  word 
"petroleum"  is  marked  twice,  indicating  that  the  "surface  shows"  of  oil  had 
attracted  the  notice  of  the  earliest  explorers  of  Southern  Ohio  and  North- 
western Pennsylvania  a  century  ago.  In  one  instance  it  is  placed  at  the  mouth 
of  the  stream  since  famed  the  world  over  as  Oil  Creek,  where  Oil  City  is 
situated  ;  in  the  other  on  a  stream  represented 
as  emptying  into  the  Ohio  river,  close  to  the 
site  of  what  is  now  the  village  of  Macksburg. 
When  that  section  of  Ohio  was  first  settled,  va- 
rious symptoms  of  greasiness  were  detected, 
thin  films  of  oil  floating  on  the  waters  of  Duck 
Creek  and  its  tributaries,  globules  rising  in  dif- 
ferent springs  and  seepings  occur  ring  frequently 
in  the  same  manner  as  in  Pennsylvania  and  West 
Virginia.  Thirty  miles  north  of  Marietta,  on 
Duck  Creek,  a  salt  well  sunk  by  Mr.  McKee,  in 
1814,  to  the  depth  of  four-hundred-and-seventy- 
five  feet,  discharged  "periodically,  at  intervals 
of  from  two  to  four  days  and  from  three  to  six 
hours'  duration,  thirty  to  sixty  gallons  of  petro- 
leum at  each  inception."  Eighteen  years  after- 
wards the  discharges  were  less  frequent  and  the 
yield  of  oil  diminished  to  one  barrel  a  week, 
finally  ceasing  altogether.  Once  thirty  or  forty 
barrels  stored  in  a  cistern  took  fire  from  the  gas 

at  the  well  having  been  ignited  by  a  workman  carrying  a  light.  The  burning 
oil  ran  into  the  creek,  blazed  to  the  tops  of  the  trees  and  exhibited  for  hours  to 
the  amazed  settlers  the  novelty  of  a  rivulet  on  fire.  Ten  miles  above  McCon- 
nellsville,  on  the  Muskingum  River,  results  almost  identical  attended  the  boring 
of  salt-wells  in  1819.  Dr.  S.  P.  Hildreth,  of  Marietta,  in  an  account  of  the 
region,  written  that  year,  says  of  the  borings  for  salt  water  : 

"  They  have  sunk  two  wells  more  than  four  hundred  feet ;  one  of  them  affords  a  strong  and 
pure  water,  but  not  in  great  quantity  ;  the  other  discharges  such  vast  quantities  of  petroleum,  or 
as  it  is  vulgarly  called  "  Seneca  Oil,"  and  besides  is  subject  to  such  tremendous  explosions  of 
gas  *  *  *  that  they  make  little  or  no  salt.  Nevertheless,  the  petroleum  affords  considerable 
profit  and  is  beginning  to  be  in  demand  for  workshops  and  manufactories.  It  affords  a  clear, 
brisk  light,  when  burned  in  this  way,  and  will  be  a  valuable  article  for  lighting  the  street-lamps 
in  the  future  cities  of  Ohio." 

The  last  sentence  has  the  force  of  a  prophecy.     Writing  about  the  year 


AN  OLD   OIL-SPRING   IN  OHIO. 


jo  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

1832  the  same  observant  author  directs  attention  to  another  notable  feature : 
"Since  the  first  settlement  of  the  regions  west  of  the  Appalachian  range  the  hunters  and 
pioneers  have  been  acquainted  with  this  oil.  Rising  in  a  hidden  and  mysterious  manner  from 
the  bowels  of  the  earth,  it  soon  arrested  their  attention  and  acquired  great  value  in  the  eyes  of 
the  simple  sons  of  the  forest.  *  *  *  From  its  success  in  rheumatism,  burns,  coughs,  sprains 
etc.,  it  was  justly  entitled  to  its  celebrity.  *  *  *  It  is  also  well  adapted  \.o prevent  friction  in 
machinery,  for,  being  free  of  gluten,  so  common  to  animal  and  vegetable  oils,  it  preserves  the 
parts  to  which  it  is  applied  for  a  long  time  in  free  motion  ;  where  a  heavy  vertical  shaft  runs  in  a 
socket  it  is  preferable  to  all  or  any  other  articles.  This  oil  rises  in  greater  or  less  abundance  in 
most  of  the  salt-wells  and,  collecting  where  it  rises,  is  removed  from  time  to  time  with  a  ladle." 

Is  it  not  strange  that,  with  the  sources  of  supply  thus  pointed  out  in  different 
counties  and  states  and  the  useful  applications  of  petroleum  fairly  understood, 
its  real  value  should  have  remained  unappreciated  and  unrecognized  for  more 
than  thirty  years  and  be  at  last  determined  through  experiments  upon  the  dis- 
tillation of  bituminous  shales  and  coals  ?  Wells  sunk  hundreds  of  feet  for  salt 
water  produced  oil  in  abundance,  yet  it  occurred  to  no  one  that,  if  bored  ex- 
pressly for  petroleum,  it  could  be  found  in  paying  quantity  !  Hamilton  McClin- 
tock,  owner  of  the  "oil-spring  "  famed  in  history  and  romance,  when  somebody 
ventured  to  suggest  that  he  should  dig  into  the  rock  a  short  distance,  instead  of 
skimming  the  petroleum  with  a  flannel -cloth,  retorted  hotly  :  "  I'm  no  blanked 
fool  to  dig  a  hole  for  the  oil  to  get  away  through  the  bottom  !" 

If  West  Virginia,  Pennsylvania  and  Ohio  played  trumps  in  the  exciting 
game  of  Brine  vs.  Oil,  Kentucky  held  the  bowers.  The  home  of  James  Harrod 
and  Daniel  Boone,  Henry  Clay  and  George  D.  Prentice  was  noted  for  other 
things  besides  backwoods  fighters,  statesmanship,  sparkling  journalism,  thor- 
oughbred horses,  superb  women  and  moonshine  whiskey.  Off  in  the  southeast 
corner  of  Wayne  county,  near  the  northeast  corner  of  a  six-thousand-acre  tract 


i  MONTICELLO 
WAYNE  COUNTY 


of  wild  land,  David  Beatty  bored  a  well 
for  salt  about  the  year  1818.  The  land 
extended  four  miles  westward  from  the 
Big  South  Fork  of  the  Cumberland  Riv- 
er, its  eastern  boundary,  and  three  miles 
down  the  Fork  from  Tennessee,  its 
southern  line.  The  well  was  located  on 
a  strip  of  flat  ground  between  the  stream 
and  a  rocky  bluff,  streaked  with  veins  of 
coal  and  limestone.  Five  yards  from  the 
water  a  hole  nine  feet  square  was  dug 
ten  feet  to  the  rock  and  timbered.  The 
well,  barely  three  inches  in  diameter, 
was  punched  one-hundred-and-seventy 
feet  by  manual  labor,  steam-engines  not 
having  penetrated  the  trackless  forests 
of  Wayne  at  that  period.  To  the  intense 
disgust  of  the  workmen  a  black,  sticky,  viscid  liquid  persisted  in  coming  up 
with  the  salt-water  and  a  new  location  was  chosen  two  miles  farther  down  the 
creek.  Extra  care  not  to  drill  too  deep  averted  an  influx  of  the  disagreeable 
fluid  which  spoiled  the  first  venture.  Salt-works  were  established  and  flour- 
ished for  years,  a  simon-pure  oasis  in  the  interminable  wilderness. 

Beatty  was  elected  to  Congress,  serving  his  constituents  faithfully  and  illus- 
trating the  Mulberry-Sellers  policy  of  "  the  old  flag  and  an  appropriation. "  He 
secured  a  liberal  grant  for  a  road  to  his  property  on  the  South  Fork  and  con- 


KENTUCKY'S  FIRST  OIL-WELL. 


NEAR  ING    THE  DAWN.  31 

structed  a  passable  thoroughfare.  Traces  of  deep  cuttings,  log  culverts  and 
blasted  rocks,  still  discernible  amid  the  underbrush  that  well-nigh  hides  them 
from  view,  are  convincing  evidences  of  the  magnitude  and  difficulty  of  the  task. 
"The  rocky  road  to  Dublin"  was  a  mere  bagatelle  in  comparison  with  this 
long-deserted  pathway.  "Jordan  is  a  hard  road  to  travel,"  says  an  old  song, 
and  the  sentiment  would  fit  equally  well  in  this  case.  At  one  rugged  point 
holes  were  cut  in  a  rock  as  steep  as  the  roof  of  a  house,  to  afford  footing  for 
the  mules  engaged  in  drawing  salt  from  the  works  !  Considering  the  roughness 
of  the  country,  the  height  of  the  hills,  the  depth  of  the  chasms  and  the  scanty 
facilities  available,  Beatty's  road  was  quite  as  remarkable  a  feat  as  Bonaparte's 
passage  across  the  Alps  or  Ben  Butler's  "Dutch-Gap  Canal."  Its  spirited 
projector  lived  and  died  at  Monticello,  the  county-seat,  where  his  descendants 
resided  until  recently. 

The  abandoned  well  did  not  propose  to  be  snuffed  out  unceremoniously  or 
to  enact  the  role  of  "  Leah  the  Forsaken."  In  its  bright  lexicon  the  word  fail 
was  not  to  be  inserted  merely  because  it  was  too  fresh  to  participate  in  the 
salt-trade.  Far  from  retiring  permanently,  it  spouted  petroleum  at  a  Nancy- 
Hanks  quickstep,  filling  the  pit,  running  into  the  Fork  and  covering  mile  after 
mile  of  the  water  with  a  top-dressing  of  oil.  Somehow  the  floating  mass  caught 
fire  and  mammoth  pyrotechnics  ensued.  The  stream  blazed  and  boiled  and 
sizzled  from  the  well  to  the  Cumberland  River,  thirty-five  miles  northward, 
calcining  rocks  and  licking  up  babbling  brooks  on  its  fiery  march  !  Trees  on 
its  banks  burned  and  blistered  and  charred  to  their  deepest  roots.  Iron-pans 
at  the  salt-wells  got  red-hot,  shriveled,  warped,  twisted  and  joined  the  junk- 
pile  !  Was  not  that  a  sweet  revenge  for  plucky  No.  i,  the  well  its  owner  "  had 
no  use  for"  and  devoutly  wished  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea  ? 

The  Chicago  fire  "couldn't  hold  a  candle  "  to  this  rural  conflagration,  which 
originated  the  expressive  phrase  of  "  hell  with  the  lid  off,"  applied  sixty  years 
afterwards  by  James  Parton  to  the  flaming  furnaces  at  Pittsburg.  Unluckily, 
the  region  was  populated  so  sparsely  that  few  spectators  had  front  seats  at  ' '  the 
greatest  show  on  earth. ' '  The  deluge  of  oil  ceased  eventually,  the  fire  following 
suit.  Anon  the  salt  industry  began  to  languish  and  the  works  were  dismantled. 
No  more  the  forest  road  echoed  the  sharp  crack  of  the  teamster's  whip  or  heard 
his  lusty  oaths.  The  district  along  the  South  Fork  was  left  as  silent  as  ' '  the 
harp  that  once  through  Tara's  halls  the  soul  of  music  shed, ' '  ready  to  be  labeled 
"  Ichabod,"  and  tradition  alone  preserved  the  name  and  record  of  the  "  Beatty 

Well,"    THE   FIRST   REAL   OIL-SPOUTER    IN   AMERICA! 

Accompanied  by  Dr.  W.  G.  Hunter,  and  a  native  as  guide,  it  was  my  good 
fortune  to  visit  this  memorable  locality  in  1877.  The  start  was  from  Burksville, 
Cumberland  county,  the  doctor's  home  and  my  headquarters  for  a  twelvemonth. 
At  Albany,  Clinton  county,  sure-footed  mules,  the  only  animals  that  could  be 
ridden  safely  through  the  rough  country,  took  the  place  of  our  horses.  Soon 
the  last  signs  of  civilization  disappeared  and  we  plunged  into  the  thick  woods, 
a  crooked,  tortuous  trail  pointing  the  way.  Hills,  rocks,  ravines,  fallen  trees 
and  mountain  streams  by  turns  impeded  our  progress,  as  we  rode  in  Indian  file 
for  thirty  miles.  Birds  twittered  and  snakes  "hissed  at  the  invasion  of  their  soli- 
tudes. Several  times  the  path  touched  the  line  of  Beatty's  forgotten  road  and 
once  a  ruined  cabin,  with  three  grave-like  mounds  in  a  corner  of  the  small  clear- 
ing, met  our  gaze.  The  guide  explained  how,  twenty  years  before,  the  poor 
family  tenanting  the  wretched  hovel  had  been  poisoned  by  eating  some  kind  of 


32  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

berries,  the  parents  and  their  only  child  dying  alone  and  unattended.  No  human 
eye  beheld  their  struggles,  no  soft  hand  cooled  the  fevered  brows  of  the  sufferers 
whose  lives  went  out  in  that  desolate  waste. 

Provisions  in  our  saddle-bags,  a  clear  brook  and  evergreen  boughs  supplied 
us  with  food,  drink  and  an  open-air  bed.  Next  morning  we  traversed  a  broad 
plateau,  ending  abruptly  at  the  top  of  a  precipitous  bluff  a  hundred  feet  high. 
Beneath  us  lay  a  stretch  of  bottom-land,  with  the  Big  South  Fork  on  its  east 
side  and  the  Cumberland  Mountains  rearing  their  bold  crests  five  miles  away.  In 
the  center  of  a  patch  of  cleared  ground  stood  a  shanty,  built  of  poles  and  roofed 
with  split  slabs  of  oak.  From  an  open  space  in  one  end  smoke  escaped  freely, 
showing  that  the  place  was  inhabited.  Tethering  the  mules  and  throwing  the 
saddles  upon  the  grass,  we  crawled  down  a  slope  formed  by  the  collapse  of  a 
portion  of  the  bluff.  A  shot  from  my  revolver — everybody  carried  a  pistol — 
shattered  the  atmosphere  and  brought  the  inmates  to  the  side  of  the  dwelling. 
The  father,  mother,  a  child  in  arms  and  two  boys  entering  their  teens  watched 
our  approach.  As  we  drew  nigh  they  scampered  into  the  shanty  and  took  refuge 
under  a  queer  structure  of  rails,  straw  and  blankets  that  did  duty  as  a  bed  for 
the  household  !  A  blanket  hung  over  the  space  cut  for  a  door.  Drawing  this 
aside,  the  frightened  family  could  be  seen  crouching  on  the  bare  soil,  for  the 
abode  had  neither  door,  window,  floor  nor  chinking  between  the  logs.  It  was 
quite  unfit  to  shelter  a  decent  porker.  Not  a  chair,  table,  stove,  looking-glass, 
bureau  or  any  of  the  articles  of  furniture  deemed  necessary  for  modern  comfort 
was  in  sight !  A  bench  hewn  out  of  timber  with  an  axe,  two  metal  pots,  some 
tin-dishes  and  knives  and  forks  composed  the  domestic  outfit !  Yet  it  was 
"home"  to  the  squalid  beings  huddled  in  the  dark,  damp,  musty  angle  farthest 
from  the  intruders  who  had  dropped  in  upon  them  so  unexpectedly. 

Calling  them  to  come  out  and  speak  with  us  a  moment,  the  woman  ap- 
peared, bearing  the  inevitable  baby.  She  was  truly  a  revelation,  with  unkempt 
brindle  hair  and  sallow  skin  to  match.  Her  raiment  consisted  of  a  single  jean 
garment,  dirty  and  tattered  beyond  description,  too  narrow  to  encircle  her  waist 
and  too  short  to  reach  within  a  dozen  inches  of  her  naked  feet.  Compared  with 
the  flimsy  toilet  of  "  a  living  picture,"  this  costume  was  simplicity  itself.  The 
poor  creature  smoked  a  cob-pipe  viciously.  A  request  to  see  her  husband 
evoked  the  command  :  "  Old  man,  I  reckon  you  best  git  out  hyer  !"  The  "  old 
man  "  heeded  this  summons  and  emerged  from  his  hiding-place,  trembling  vio- 
lently. His  attire  was  in  harmony  with  his  wife's,  threadbare  jean-pants  and 
shirt  comprising  it.  Head  and  feet  were  bare.  His  trembling  ceased  the  instant 
he  saw  our  guide,  whom  he  knew  and  greeted  cordially.  Introductions  followed 
and  we  asked  if  he  could  show  us  the  way  to  the  Beatty  Well.  He  answered  in 
perfect  English,  with  the  grace  of  a  Chesterfield  :  "  It  will  be  the  greatest  pleas- 
ure I  have  known  for  many  a  day  to  go  with  you  to  the  exact  spot  and  give  you 
all  the  information  in  my  power  !" 

A  brisk  walk  brought  us  to  the  well.  Dirt  and  leaves  had  filled  the  pit 
nearly  level,  forming  a  depression  which  one  might  pass  without  special  notice. 
Scraping  away  the  rubbish,  blackened  fragments  of  the  timbered  walls  ap- 
peared. But  not  a  drop  of  oil  had  issued  from  the  veteran  well  for  scores  of 
years.  One  man  alone  survived  of  those  who  had  gazed  upon  the  flow  of  pe- 
troleum previous  to  the  fire  which  checked  the  greasian  tide  forever.  He  lived 
ten  miles  northwest  and  his  short  story  was  learned  on  the  return  trip  by  another 
route.  The  scattered  rustics  were  accustomed  to  go  to  the  well  once  or  twice  a 


NBA  RING    THE  DAWN. 


33 


IN  1877. 


year  and  dip  enough  oil  to  medicate  and  lubricate  whoever  or  whatever  needed 
it.  The  fluid  was  dark  and  heavy  and  for  years  rose  to  within  a  few  feet  of  the 
surface.  At  length  the  well 
clogged  up  and  was  almost  ob- 
1  iterated.  The  dim  eyes  of  the 
aged  narrator  sparkled  as  he 
recalled  the  big  blaze,  con- 
cluding with  the  emphatic 
words  :  "  It  jes'  looked  ez  if 
the  devil  had  hitched  up  the 
hull  bottomless  pit  fur  a  torch- 
light percession  !" 

Except  the  squatter  on  the 
tract  of  land,  which  Dr.  Hun- 
ter and  myself  had  secured  the 
winter  of  our  visit,  the  nearest 
settler  lived  five  miles  distant ! 
The  Cincinnati  Southern  Rail- 
road, now  the  Queen  &  Cres- 
cent route,  had  not  crossed  the 
Kentucky  River  and  the  coun- 
try was  practically  inaccessi- 
ble. Men  and  women  grew  up  without  ever  hearing  of  a  church,  a  school,  a 
book,  a  newspaper,  a  preacher,  a  doctor,  a  wheeled  vehicle  or  a  lucifer-match  ! 
The  heathen  of  Bariaboola-Gha  were  as  well  informed  concerning  God  and  a  fu- 
ture state.  They  herded  in  miserable  cabins,  lived  on  "  corn-dodgers  and  sow- 
belly," drank  home-made  whiskey  and  never  wandered  ten  miles  from  their 
own  fireside.  Of  the  great  outside  world,  of  moral  obligations,  of  religious  con- 
viction and  of  current  events  they  were  profoundly  ignorant.  Think  of  people 
fifty,  sixty,  seventy  years  old,  born  and  reared  in  the  United  States,  who  never 
saw  a  loaf  of  wheat-bread,  a  wagon,  a  cart  or  a  baby-carriage,  to  say  nothing  of 
a  plum-pudding,  railway-coach,  a  trolley-car  or  a  tandem-bicycle  !  It  seems  in- 
credible, in  this  advanced  age  and  bang-up  nation,  that  such  conditions  should 
be  possible,  yet  they  existed  in  Southeastern  Kentucky.  And  the  American 
eagle  flaps  his  wings,  while  Americans  boast  of  their  culture  and  send  barrels  of 
cold  cash  to  buy  flannel-shirts  for  perspiring  Hottentots  and  goody-goody  tracts 
for  jolly  cannibals ! 

Small  need  of  barbed-wire  fences  to  shut  out  the  cattle  and  chickens  of 
neighbors  five  miles  apart !  Their  children  did  not  quarrel  and  sulk  and  yell 
"You  can't  play  in  our  yard  !"  Our  host,  who  took  us  over  the  property  and 
told  us  all  he  knew  about  it,  had  not  seen  a  strange  face  for  twenty-nine  weary 
months  !  Then  the  neighbor  five  miles  off  had  come  in  the  vain  search  of  a 
cruse  of  oil  from  the  old  well  to  rub  on  an  afflicted  hog !  Three  years  had 
rolled  by  since  his  last  expedition  to  the  cross-roads,  fourteen  miles  away,  to 
trade  ''coon  skins"  for  jeans  and  groceries.  Could  isolation  be  more  complete  ? 
Was  Alexander  Selkirk  less  blessed  with  companionship  on  his  secluded  island  ? 
Had  Coleridge's  Ancient  Mariner,  "  on  a  wide,  wide  sea,"  greater  cause  for  an 
attack  of  the  blues  ? 

The  steel-track  and  the  iron-horse  are  prime  civilizers  and  eighteen  years 
have  wrought  a  wondrous  change  in  the  section  bordering  upon  the  Cumberland 


34  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE- OIL. 

Mountains.  The  schoolmaster  has  come  in  with  the  railroad  and  improvement 
is  the  prevailing  order.  Farmers  have  turned  their  forests  into  cultivated  fields 
and  bought  the  latest  implements.  Their  boys  read  the  papers,  yearn  for  the 
city,  smoke  cigarettes,  dabble  in  politics  and  dream  of  unbounded  wealth. 
The  girls,  no  longer  content  with  homespun  frocks  and  sunbonnets,  dress  in 
silk  and  velvet,  wear  stylish  hats,  devour  French  novels,  sport  high-heeled  shoes 
and  balloon-sleeves,  play  Beethoven  and  Chopin,  waltz  divinely  and  are  alto- 
gether lovable ! 

An  apparition  muttering  "I  am  thy  father's  ghost"  would  not  have  sur- 
prised us  so  much  as  the  politeness  of  our  half-clad,  barefooted,  bareheaded 
pilot  to  the  neglected  well.  His  manners  and  his  language  were  faultless.  Not 
a  coarse  word  or  grammatical  error  marred  his  fluent  speech.  At  noon  he 
invited  us  to  share  his  humble  dinner,  apologizing  with  royal  dignity  for  the 
poverty  of  his  surroundings.  "Gentlemen,"  he  said,  "I  regret  that  parched 
corn  and  fat  bacon  are  all  I  can  offer,  but  I  beg  you  to  honor  me  with  your 
presence  at  my  table  !"  Remembering  the  cabin  and  its  presiding  divinity,  we 
felt  obliged  to  decline  and  requested  him  to  lunch  with  us.  It  was  a  positive 
pleasure  to  see  with  what  relish  he  ate  the  baked  chicken,  biscuit  and  good 
things  Mrs.  Hunter  had  packed  in  our  saddle-bags.  After  the  meal  we  prepared 
to  depart.  The  end  of  a  Louisville  paper  under  the  flap  of  my  saddle  attracted 
the  old  man's  attention. 

"Is  that  a  newspaper?"  he  inquired. 

"Yes,  do  you  want  it?" 

"Oh,  thank  you  a  thousand  times  !  It  is  fifteen  years  since  I  have  seen  a 
paper  and  this  will  be  such  a  treat !" 

He  seized  the  sheet  eagerly,  dropped  upon  the  grass  and  glanced  over  the 
printed  page.  In  an  instant  he  jumped  to  his  feet  and  tears  coursed  down  his 
wrinkled  cheeks. 

"  I  did  not  mean  to  be  rude,"  he  said  earnestly,  "  but  you  cannot  imagine 
how  my  feelings  mastered  me,  after  so  many  years  of  separation  from  the  world, 
at  sight  of  a  paper  from  the  city  of  my  birth  !" 

The  next  moment  the  good-byes  were  uttered  and  we  had  left  the  hermit 
of  South  Fork,  to  meet  no  more  this  side  of  eternity.  He  stood  peering  after 
us  until  the  woods  shut  us  from  his  wistful  gaze.  Six  years  later  death,  the 
grim  detective  no  vigilance  can  elude,  claimed  the  guardian  of  the  Beatty  Well. 
His  family  removed  to  parts  unknown.  He  rests  in  an  unmarked  grave,  beneath 
a  spreading  oak,  near  the  murmuring  stream.  The  lonely  exile  has  reached 
home  at  last ! 

Who  on  earth  was  this  educated,  courteous,  gentlemanly  personage,  and 
how  did  he  drift  into  such  a  place?  This  perplexing  problem  beat  the  fifteen- 
puzzle,  ' '  Pigs  in  Clover, ' '  or  the  confusing  dogma  of  Freewill  and  Predestina- 
tion. Our  guide  enlightened  us.  The  old  man  was  reared  in  Louisville, 
graduated  from  college  and  entered  an  office  to  study  law.  In  a  bar-room  row 
one  night  a  young  man,  with  whom  he  had  some  trouble,  was  stabbed  fatally. 
Fearing  he  would  be  accused  of  the  deed,  the  student  fled  to  the  woods.  For 
years  he  shunned  mankind,  subsisting  on  game  and  fruit  and  sleeping  in  a  cave. 
Every  rustling  leaf  or  snapping  twig  terrified  him  with  the  idea  that  officers  were 
at  his  heels.  Ultimately  he  gained  courage  and  sought  the  acquaintance  of  the 
few  settlers  in  his  vicinity.  Striving  to  forget  the  past,  he  cohabited  with  the 
woman  he  called  his  wife,  erected  a  shanty  and  brought  up  three  children.  Fire 


NEAR  ING    THE  DAWN.  35 

destroyed  his  hut  and  its  contents,  leaving  him  destitute,  and  he  located  where 
we  met  him.  The  fear  of  arrest  could  not  be  shaken  off  and  he  supposed  we 
had  come  to  take  him  a  prisoner,  after  twenty-five  years  of  hiding,  for  a  crime  of 
which  he  was  innocent.  This  explained  his  retreat  under  the  bed  and  violent 
trembling.  He  carried  his  secret  in  his  own  bosom  until  1873,  when  he  was  be- 
lieved to  be  dying  and  disclosed  it  to  a  friend,  our  guide,  with  a  sealed  letter 
giving  his  true  name.  He  recovered,  the  letter  was  handed  back  unopened  and 
the  fugitive's  identity  was  never  revealed.  What  an  existence  for  a  man  of  refine- 
ment and  collegiate  training  !  What  volumes  of  unwritten,  unsuspected  trage- 
dies environ  us,  could  we  but  pierce  the  outward  mask  and  read  the  tablets  of 
the  heart ! 

Eight  or  ten  years  ago  J.  O.  Marshall,  a  Pennsylvania  oil-operator,  cleaned 
out  the  Beatty  Well  and  drilled  another  a  half-mile  north.  Neither  yielded  any 
oil,  although  the  second  was  put  down  nine-hundred  feet.  Mr.  Marshall  leased 
a  great  deal  of  land  in  Wayne  and  adjacent  counties,  expecting  to  operate 
extensively,  but  he  died  without  seeing  his  purposes  accomplished.  He  was  a 
genial,  enterprising,  whole-souled  fellow, 
whose  faith  in  Kentucky  as  an  oil-field  never 
faltered. 

Dr.  Hunter,  my  esteemed  associate  on 
many  a  delightful  trip,  was  practising  at 
Newcastle,  Pa.,  when  the  civil  war  broke 
out.  He  sold  his  drug-store,  offered  his 
services  to  the  Government  and  was  placed 
in  charge  of  a  medical  department,  where 
he  made  a  first-class  record.  He  amputated 
the  leg  of  General  James  A.  Beaver,  sub- 
sequently Governor  of  Pennsylvania.  At 
the  close  of  the  war  he  settled  in  Cumber- 
land county,  married  a  prominent  young 
lady,  built  up  an  immense  practice  and 
acquired  a  competence.  He  served  with  sig- 
nal ability  and  credit  in  the  Legislature  and 

Congress,  elected  time  and  again  in  a  district  overwhelmingly  against  his  party. 
He  is  chairman  of  the  Republican  State  Committee,  member  of  Congress,  ought 
to  be  the  successor  of  Senator  Blackburn  and  ranks  with  the  leading  men  of 
Kentucky  in  character  and  influence. 

Such  is  a  brief  sketch  of  the  father  of  American  flowing-wells  and  some  of 
the  individuals  at  different  times  connected  with  it  more  or  less  directly. 

Let  future  generations  tell 
The  story  of  the  Beatty  Well, 

The  father  of  oil -spout ers ! 
In  spite  of  quips  and  jibes  and  sneers 

Of  arrant  cranks  and  doubters, 
Whose  forte  is  flinging  wretched  jeers, 
It  richly  merits  hearty  cheers 

From  true  petroleum-shouters. 


IV. 


A   TALE   OF   TWO   STATES. 


INTERESTING  PETROLEUM  DEVELOPMENTS  IN  KENTUCKY  AND  TENNESSEE — 
THE  FAMOUS  AMERICAN  WELL— A  BOSTON  COMPANY  TAKES  HOLD— PROVI- 
DENTIAL ESCAPE— REGULAR  MOUNTAIN  VENDETT*— A  SUNDAY  LYNCHING 
PARTY— PECULIAR  PHASES  OF  PIETY — AN  OLD  WOMAN'S  WELCOME — WARM 
RECEPTION — STORIES  OF  RUSTIC  SIMPLICITY. 


"  Coming  events  cast  their  shadows  before."—  Thomas  Campbell. 

"  In  Cumberland  county.  Kentucky,  a  run  of  pure  oil  was  struck." — JViles'  Register,  A.  D.  1829. 

"  Indications  of  oil  are  plentiful  in  the  neighborhood  of  Chattanooga,  Tennessee." — Robett  B. 

Roosevelt.  A.  D.,  1863 
"  Ever  since  the  first  settlement  of  the  country  oil  has  been  gathered  and  used  for  medical  pur< 

poses."— Cattelsburg,  Ky.,  Letter.  A.  D.  1884. 


INTERESTING  and  unexpected  re 
suits  from  borings  for  salt-watei1 
in  Kentucky  were  not  exhausted 
by  the  initial  experiment  on  South 
Fork.  Special  peculiarities  invest 
that  venture  with  a  romantic  halo 
essentially  its  own,  but  "  there  are 
others."  Wayne  county  was  not 
to  monopolize  the  petroleum  fea- 
ture of  salt-wells  by  a  large  major- 
ity. "  Westward  the  star  of  em- 
pire takes  its  way"  affirmed  Bish- 
op Berkeley  two  -  hundred  years 
ago,  with  the  instinct  of  a  born 
prophet,  and  it  was  so  with  the 
petroleum  star  of  Kentucky,  however  it  might  be  with  brilliant  Henri  Watter- 
son's  "star-eyed  goddess  of  Reform." 

The  storm-center  next  shifted  to  Cumberland  county,  the  second  west  of 
Wayne,  Clinton  separating  them.  Hardy  breadwinners,  braving  the  hardships 
and  privations  of  pioneer  life  in  the  backwoods,  early  in  this  century  settled 
much  of  the  country  along  the  Cumberland  River.  Upon  one  section  of  irreg- 
ular shape,  its  southern  end  bordered  by  Tennessee,  the  state  of  Davy  Crockett 
and  Andrew  Jackson,  the  name  of  the  winding  river  intersecting  it  was  appro- 
priately bestowed.  A  central  location,  between  the  west  bank  of  the  Cum- 
berland and  the  foot  of  a  lordly  hill,  was  selected  for  the  county -seat  and  christ- 
ened Burksville,  in  honor  of  a  respected  citizen  who  owned  the  site  of  the  embryo 
hamlet.  From  a  cross-roads  tavern  and  blacksmith-shop  the  place  expanded 
gradually  into  an  inviting  village  of  one-thousand  population.  It  has  fine  stores, 

37 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


good  churches  and  schools,  a  brick  court-house,  and  for  years  it  boasted  the  only 
college  in  Kentucky  for  the  education  of  girls. 

Burksville  pursued  "the  even  tenor  of  its  way"  slowly  and  surely.  Forty 
miles  from  a  railroad  or  a  telegraph-wire,  its  principal  outlet  is  the  river  during 
the  season  of  navigation.  The  Cumberland  retains  the  fashion  of  rising  sixty  to 
eighty  feet  above  its  summer  level  when  the  winter  rains  set  in  and  dwindling  to 
a  mere  brooklet  in  the  dry,  hot  months.  Old-timers  speak  of  '  '  the  flood  of  1826  '  ' 
as  the  greatest  in  the  history  of  the  community.  The  rampant  waters  overflowed 
fields  and  streets,  invaded  the  ground-floors  of  houses  and  did  a  lot  of  unpleasant 
things,  the  memory  of  which  tradition  has  kept  green.  In  January  of  1877  the 
moist  experience  was  repeated  almost  to  high-water  mark.  Saw-logs  floated 
into  kitchens  and  parlors  and  improvised  skiffs  navigated  back-yards  and  gar- 
dens. Seldom  has  the  town  cut  a  wide  swath  in  the  metropolitan  press,  because 
it  avoided  gross  scandals  and  attended  strictly  to  home-affairs.  The  chief  dis- 
sipation is  a  trip  by  boat  to  Nashville  or  Point-Burnside,  or  a  drive  overland  to 
Glasgow,  the  terminus  of  a  branch  of  the  Louisville  &  Nashville  Railroad. 

The  first  great  event  to  stir  the  hearts  of  the  good  people  of  Cumberland 
county  occurred  in  1829.  A  half-mile  from  the  mouth  of  Rennix  Creek,  a  minor 
stream  that  empties  into  the  Cumberland  two  miles  north  of  the  county  town,  a 
well  was  sunk  one-hundred-and-eighty  feet  for  salt-water.  Niles'  Register,  pub- 
lished the  same  year,  told  the  tale  tersely  : 

"  Some  months  since,  in  the  act  of  boring  for  salt-water  on  the  land  of  Mr.  Lemuel  Stockton, 
situated  in  the  county  of  Cumberland,  Kentucky,  a  run  of  pure  oil  was  struck,  from  which  it  is 
almost  incredible  what  quantities  of  the  substance  issued.  The  discharges  were  by  floods,  at 
intervals  of  from  two  to  five  minutes,  at  each  flow  vomiting  forth  many  barrels  of  pure  oil.  I 
witnessed  myself,  on  a  shaft  that  stood  upright  by  the  aperture  in  the  rock  from  which  it  issued, 
marks  of  oil  25  or  30  feet  perpendicularly  above  the  rock.  These  floods  continued  for  three  or  four 
weeks,  when  they  subsided  to  a  constant  stream,  affording  many  thousand  gallons  per  day.  This 
well  is  between  a  quarter  and  a  half-mile  from  the  bank  of 
i  the  Cumberland  River,  on  a  small  rill  (creek)  down  which  it 
runs  to  theCumberland.  It  was  traced  as  far  down  the  Cum- 
berland as  Gallatin,  in  Sumner  county,  Tennessee,  nearly  a 
hundred  miles.  For  many  miles  it  covered  the  whole  sur- 
face of  the  river  and  its  marks  are  now  found  on  the  rocks  on 
each  bank. 

"  About  two  miles  below  the  point  on  which  it  touched 
the  river,  it  was  set  on  fire  by  a  boy,  and  the  effect  was  grand 
beyond  description.  An  old  gentleman  who  witnessed  it 
says  he  has  seen  several  cities  on  fire,  but  that  he  never  be. 
held  anything  like  the  flames  which  rose  from  the  bosom  of 
the  Cumberland  to  touch  the  very  clouds." 

This  was  the  beginning  of  what  was  afterwards 
known  from  the  equator  to  the  poles  as  the  '  'Amer- 
ican .Well."  The  flow  of  oil  spoiled  the  well  for 
salt  and  the  owners  quitted  it  in  disgust,  sinking 
another  with  better  success  in  an  adjacent  field. 
For  years  it  remained  forsaken,  an  object  of  more 
or  less  curiosity  to  travelers  who  passed  close  by 
on  their  way  to  or  from  Burksville.  It  was  very 
near  the  edge  of  the  creek,  on  flat  ground  most  of 
Neighboring  farmers  dipped  oil  occasionally  for 


ENTUCKY 


FAMOUS  "AMERICAN  WELL." 
which  has  been  washed  away. 
medicine,  for  axle-grease  and  —  "  tell  it  not  in  Gath,  publish  it  not  in  Ascalon"— 
to  kill  vermin  on  swine  ! 

Job  Moses,  a  resident  of  Buffalo,  N.  Y.,  visited  the  locality  about  the  year 
1848.     He  had  read  of  the  oil-springs  in  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  West  Virginia 


A     TALE  OF  TWO  STATES.  39 

and  Ohio  and  he  decided  that  the  hole  on  Rennix  Creek  ought  to  be  a  prize-pack- 
age. His  moderate  offer  for  the  well  was  accepted  by  the  Bakers,  into  whose 
hands  the  Stockton  tract  had  come.  He  drilled  the  well  to  four-hundred  feet 
and  erected  a  pumping-rig.  The  five  or  six  barrels  a  day  of  greenish-amber 
fluid,  42°  gravity,  he  put  up  in  half-pint  bottles,  labeled  "American  Rock  Oil  " 
and  sold  at  fifty  cents,  commending  it  as  a  specific  for  numberless  complaints. 
He  reaped  a  harvest  for  several  years,  until  trade  languished  and  the  well  was 
abandoned. 

With  the  proceeds  of  his  enterprise  Moses  bought  a  large  block  of  land  at 
Limestone,  N.  Y.,  adjoining  the  northern  boundary  of  McKean  county,  Pa.,  and 
built  a  mansion  big  enough  for  a  castle.  He  farmed  extensively,  raised  herds  of 
cattle,  employed  legions  of  laborers  and  dispensed  a  bountiful  hospitality.  In 
1862-3  he  drilled  three  wells  near  his  dwelling,  finding  a  trifling  amount  of  gas  and 
oil.  Had  he  drilled  deeper  he  would  inevitably  have  opened  up  the  phenomenal 
Bradford  field  a  dozen  years  in  advance  of  its  actual  development.  Wells  twelve- 
hundred  to  three-thousand  feet  deep  had  not  been  dreamt  of  in  petroleum  phi- 
losophy at  that  date,  else  Job  Moses  might  have  diverted  the  whole  current  of 
oil  operations  northward  and  postponed  indefinitely  the  advent  of  the  Clarion 
and  Butler  districts  !  Boring  a  four-inch  hole  a  few  hundred  feet  farther  would 
have  done  it ! 

On  what  small  causes  great  effects  sometimes  depend  !  Believing  a  snake- 
story  induced  our  first  parents  to  sample  "the  fruit  of  that  forbidden  tree  whose 
mortal  taste  brought  sin  into  our  world  and  all  our  woe."  Ambition  to  be  a 
boss  precipitated  Lucifer  ' '  from  the  battlements  of  heaven  to  the  nethermost 
abyss. ' '  A  dream  released  J  oseph  from  prison  to  be  '  'ruler  over  Egypt. ' '  The 
smiles  of  a  wanton  plunged  Greece  into  war  and  wiped  Troy  from  the  face  of  the 
earth.  A  prod  on  the  heel  slew  Achilles,  a  nail— driven  by  a  woman  at  that— fin- 
ished Sisera  and  a  pebble  ended  Goliath.  The  cackling  of  a  goose  saved  Rome 
from  the  barbarous  hordes  of  Brennus.  A  cobweb  across  the  mouth  of  the  cave 
secreting  him  preserved  Mahomet  from  his  pursuers  and  gave  Arabia  and  Tur- 
key a  new  religion.  The  scorching  of  a  cake  in  a  goatherd's  hut  aroused  King 
Alfred  and  restored  the  Saxon  monarchy  in  England.  The  movements  of  a 
spider  inspired  Robert  Bruce  to  renewed  exertions  and  secured  the  independ- 
ence of  Scotland.  An  infected  rag  in  a  bundle  of  Asiatic  goods  scourged  Europe/ 
with  the  plague.  The  fall  of  an  apple  from  a  tree  resulted  in  Sir  Isaac  Newton's 
sublime  theory  of  gravitation.  The  vibrations  of  a  tea-kettle  lid  suggested  to 
the  Marquis  of  Worcester  the  first  conception  of  the  steam-engine.  A  woman's 
chance  remark  led  Eli  Whitney  to  invent  the  cotton-gin.  The  twitching  of  a 
frog's  muscles  revealed  galvanism.  A  diamond  necklace  hastened  the  French 
Revolution  and  consigned  Marie  Antoinette  to  the  guillotine.  Hacking  a  cherry- 
tree  with  a  hatchet  earned  George  Washington  greater  glory  than  the  victory  of 
Monmouth  or  the  overthrow  of  Cornwallis.  A  headache  helped  cost  Napoleon 
the  battle  of  Waterloo  and  change  the  destiny  of  twenty  kingdoms.  An  affront 
to  an  ambassador  drove  Germany  to  arms,  exiled  Louis  Napoleon  and  made 
France  a  republic.  Mrs.  O'Leary's  kicking  cow  laid  Chicago  in  ashes  and  burst 
up  no  end  of  insurance  companies.  An  alliterative  phrase  defeated  James  G. 
Blaine  for  President  of  the  United  States.  An  epigram,  a  couplet  or  a  line  has 
been  known  to  confer  immortality.  A  new  bonnet  has  disrupted  a  sewing- 
society,  split  a  congregation  and  put  devout  members  on  the  toboggan  in  their 
hurry  to  backslide.  An  onion-breath  has  severed  doting  lovers,  cheated  par- 
sons of  their  wedding-fees  and  played  hob  with  Cupid's  calculations.  Statistics 
4 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


fail  to  disclose  the  awful  havoc  wrought  in  millions  of  homes  by  such  observa- 
tions, on  the  part  of  thoughtless  young  husbands,  as  "this  isn't  the  way  mother 
baked,"  or  "mother's  coffee  didn't  taste  like  this  !" 

Moses  lived  to  produce  oil  from  his  farms  and  to  witness,  five  miles  south 
of  Limestone,  the  grandest  petroleum  development  of  any  age  or  nation.  He 
was  built  on  the  broad-gauge  plan,  physically  and  mentally,  and  ' '  the  light  went 
out"  peacefully  at  last.  The  Kentucky  well  was  never  revived.  The  rig  de- 
cayed and  disappeared,  a  timber  or  two  lingering  until  carried  off  by  the  flood 
in  1877. 

In  the  autumn  of  1876  Frederic  Prentice,  a  leading  operator,  engaged  me 
to  go  to  Kentucky  to  lease  and  purchase  lands  for  oil  purposes.  Shortly  before 
Christmas  he  wished  me  to  meet  him  in  New  York  and  go  from  there  to  Boston, 
to  give  information  to  parties  he  expected  to  associate  with  him  in  his  Kentucky 
projects.  Together  we  journeyed  to  the  city  of  culture  and  baked-beans  and 
met  the  gentlemen  in  the  office  of  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad  Company.  The 
gathering  was  quite  notable.  Besides  Mr.  Prentice,  who  had  long  been  prom- 
inent in  petroleum  affairs,  Stephen  Weld,  Oliver  Ames,  Sen.,  Oliver  Ames, 
Jun.,  Frederick  Ames,  F.  Gordon  Dexter  and 
one  or  two  others  were  present.  Mr.  Weld 
was  the  richest  citizen  of  New  England,  his 
estate  at  his  death  inventorying  twenty-two 
millions.  The  elder  Oliver  Ames,  head  of 
the  giant  shovel  manufacturing  firm  of  Oliver 
Ames  &  Sons,  was  a  brother  of  Oakes  Ames, 
the  creator  of  the  Pacific  Railroads,  whom  the 
Credit-Mobilier  engulfed  in  its  ruthless  de- 
struction of  statesmen  and  politicians.  His 
nephew  and  namesake  was  a  son  of  Oakes 
Ames  and  Governor  of  Massachusetts  in  1887- 
8-9.  He  began  his  career  in  the  shovel-works, 
learning  the  trade  as  an  employe,and  at  thirty- 
five  had  amassed  a  fortune  of  ten  millions. 
He  occupied  the  finest  house  in  Boston,  enter- 
tained lavishly,  spent  immense  sums  for 
paintings  and  bric-a-brac  and  died  in  October  of  1895.  Frederick  Ames,  son  of 
the  senior  Oliver,  has  inherited  his  father's  executive  talent  and  he  maintains 
the  family's  reputation  for  sagacity  and  the  acquisition  of  wealth.  F.  Gordon 
Dexter  is  a  multi-millionaire,  a  power  in  the  railroad  world  and  a  resident  of 
Beacon  street,  the  swell  avenue  of  the  Hub. 

Such  were  the  men  who  heard  the  reports  concerning  Kentucky.  They  did 
not  squirm  and  hesitate  and  wonder  where  they  were  at.  Thirty-five  minutes 
after  entering  the  room  the  "  Boston  Oil  Company  "  was  organized,  the  capital 
was  paid  in,  officers  were  elected,  a  lawyer  had  started  to  get  the  charter  and 
authority  was  given  me  to  draw  at  sight  for  whatever  cash  was  needed  up  to 
one-hundred-thousand  dollars  !  This  record-breaking  achievement  was  about 
as  expeditious  as  the  Chicago  grocer,  who  closed  his  store  one  forenoon  and 
pasted  on  the  door  a  placard  inscribed  in  bold  characters:  "At  my  wife's 
funeral— back  in  twenty  minutes  !" 

Oliver  Ames,  the  future  governor,  invited  the  party  to  lunch  at  the  Parker 
House,  Boston's  noted  hostelry.  An  hour  sped  quickly.  My  return  trip  had 
been  arranged  by  way  of  Buffalo  and  the  Lake-Shore  Road  to  Franklin.  The 


GOVERNOR   AMES. 


A     TALE  OF  TWO   STATES.  41 

time  to  start  arrived,  the  sleigh  to  take  me  to  the  depot  was  at  the  door,  the 
good-byes  were  said,  the  driver  tucked  in  the  robes  and  grasped  the  lines.  At 
that  instant  Oliver  Ames,  Sen.,  called  :  "  Please  come  into  the  hotel  one  mo- 
ment ;  I  want  to  jot  down  something  you  told  us  about  the  American  Well." 
The  other  gentlemen  looked  on,  the  explanation  was  penciled  rapidly,  my  seat 
in  the  sleigh  was  resumed  and  Mr.  Dexter  jokingly  said  to  the  Jehu  :  "  You'll 
have  to  hustle,  or  your  fare  will  miss  his  train  !" 

Through  the  narrow,  twisted,  crowded  streets  the  horses  trotted  briskly. 
Rushing  into  the  station,  the  train  was  pulling  out  and  the  ticket-examiner  was 
shutting  the  iron-gates.  He  refused  to  let  me  attempt  to  catch  the  rear  car  and 
my  disappointment  was  extreme.  A  train  for  New  York  and  Pittsburg  left  in 
fifteen  minutes.  It  bore  me,  an  unwilling  passenger,  safely  and  satisfactorily  to 
the  ' '  Smoky  City. ' '  There  the  news  reached  me  of  the  frightful  railway  disaster 
at  Ashtabula,  in  which  P.  P.  Bliss  and  fourscore  fellow-mortals,  filled  with  fond 
anticipations  of  New-Year  reunions,  perished  in  the  icy  waters  ninety  feet  be- 
neath the  treacherous  bridge  that  dropped  them  into  the  yawning  chasm  !  The 
doomed  train  was  the  same  that  would  have  borne  me  to  Ashtabula  and — to 
death,  had  not  Mr.  Ames  detained  me  to  make  the  entry  m  his  memorandum- 
book  !  Call  it  Providence,  Luck,  Chance,  what  you  will,  an  incident  of  this  stamp 
is  apt  to  beget  ' '  a  heap  of  tall  thinking. ' ' 

Returning  to  Burksville  in  January,  the  work  of  leasing  went  ahead  merrily. 
The  lands  around  the  American  Well  were  taken  at  one-eighth  royalty.  Forty 
rods  northeast  of  the  American,  in  a  small  ravine,  a  well  was  drilled  eight-hun- 
dred feet.  At  two-hundred  feet  some  gas  and  oil  appeared,  but  the  well  proved 
a  failure.  While  it  was  under  way  the  gas  in  a  deserted  salt-well  twenty  rods 
northwest  of  the  American  burst  forth  violently,  sending  frozen  earth,  water 
and  pieces  of  rock  high  into  the  air.  The  derrick  at  the  Boston  Well,  rising  to  the 
height  of  seventy-two  feet,  was  a  perennial 
delight  to  the  ^natives.  Youths,  boys  and 
old  men  ascended  the  ladder  to  the  top- 
most round  to  enjoy  the  beautiful  view. 
Pretty  girls  longed  to  try  the  experiment 
and  it  was  whispered  that  six  of  them,  one 
night  when  only  the  man  in  the  moon 
was  peeping,  performed  the  perilous  feat. 
Certain  it  is  that  a  winsome  teacher  at  the 
college,  who  climbed  the  celestial  stair  -^ 
years  ago,  succeeded  in  the  effort  and  -J 
wrecked  her  dress  on  the  way  back  to  solid 
ground.  A  dining-room  girl  at  Petrol  ia, 
in  1873,  stood  on  top  of  a  derrick,  to  win  jl 
a  pair  of  shoes  banteringly  offered  by  a 
jovial  oilman  to  the  first  fair  maiden  enti- 
tled to  the  prize.  Lovely  woman  and 
Banquo's  ghost  will  not  "  down  !" 

Three  miles  northeast  of  the  Amer-  GIRL  CLJMBJNG  A  DERR1CK 

can  Well,  at  the  mouth  of  Crocus  Creek, 

C.  H.  English  drilled  eight  shallow  wells  in  1865.  They  were  bunched  closely 
and  one  flowed  nine-hundred  barrels  a  day.  Transportation  was  lacking,  the 
product  could  not  be  marketed  and  the  promising  field  was  deserted.  Twelve 
years  later  the  Boston  Oil  Company  drilled  in  the  midst  of  English's  cluster,  to 


42  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

discover  the  quality  of  the  strata,  and  could  not  exhaust  the  surface  water  by  the 
most  incessant  pumping.  The  company  also  drilled  on  the  Gilreath  farm,  across 
the  Cumberland  from  Burksville,  where  Captain  Phelps  found  heavy  oil  in  pay- 
ing quantity  back  in  the  sixties.  The  well  produced  nicely  and  would  have  paid 
handsomely  had  a  railroad  or  a  pipe-line  been  within  reach.  A  well  two  miles 
west  of  Ihe  American,  drilled  in  1891,  had  plenty  of  sand  and  showed  for  a  fifty- 
barreler. 

Six  miles  south-west  of  Burksville,  at  Cloyd's  Landing,  J.  W.  Sherman,  of 
Oil-Creek  celebrity,  drilled  a  well  in  1865  which  spouted  a  thousand  barrels  ot 
40°  gravity  oil  in  twenty-four  hours.  He  loaded  a  barge  with  oil  in  bulk,  in- 
tending to  ship  it  to  Nashville.  The  ill-fated  graft  struck  a  rock  in  the  river  and 
the  oil  floated  off  on  its  own  hook.  Sherman  threw  up  the  sponge  and  returned 
to  Pennsylvania.  Three  others  on  the  Cloyd  tract  started  finely,  but  the  won- 
derful excitement  at  Pithole  was  breaking  out  and  operations  elsewhere  received 
a  cold  chill.  Dr.  Hunter  purchased  the  Cloyd  farm  and  leased  it  in  1877  to  Pe- 
ter Christie,  of  Petrolia,  who  did  not  operate  on  any  of  the  lands  he  secured  in 
Kentucky  and  Tennessee.  Micawber-like,  Cumberland  county  is  "  waiting  for 
something  to  turn  up"  in  the  shape  of  facilities  for  handling  oil.  When  these 
are  assured  the  music  of  the  walking-beam  will  tickle  the  ears  of  expectant  be- 
lievers in  Kentucky  as  the  coming  oil-field. 

Wayne  and  Cumberland  had  been  heard  from  and  Clinton  county  was  the 
third  to  have  its  inning.  On  the  west  bank  of  Otter  Creek,  a  sparkling  tributary 
of  Beaver  Creek,  a  well  bored  for  salt  fifty  or  more  years  ago  yielded  consider- 
able oil.  Instead  of  giving  up  the  job,  the  owners  pumped  the  water  and  oil 
into  a  tank,  over  the  side  of  which  the  lighter  fluid  was  permitted  to  empty  at  its 
leisure.  The  salt-works  came  to  a  full  stop  eventually  and  the  well  relapsed 
into  "innocuous  desuetude."  L.  D.  Carter,  of  Aurora,  111.,  sojourning  tempora- 
rily in  Clinton  for  his  health,  saw  the  old  well  in  1864.  He  dipped  a  jugful  of 
oil,  took  it  to  Aurora,  tested  it  on  the  Chicago,  Burlington  &  Quincy  Railroad, 
found  it  a  good  lubricant  and  concluded  to  give  the  well  a  square  trial.  The 
railroad  company  agreed  to  buy  the  oil  at  a  fair  price.  Carter  pumped  six  or 
eight  barrels  a  day,  hauled  it  in  wagons  over  the  hills  to  the  Cumberland  River 
and  saved  money.  He  granted  Mr.  Prentice  an  option  on  the  property  in  1877. 
The  day  the  option  expired}.  O.  Marshall  bought  the  well,  farm  and  ten-thou- 
sand acres  of  leases  conditionally,  for  a  Butler  operator  who  "didn't  have  the 
price,"  and  the  deal  fell  through. 

The  well  stood  idle  until  1892,  when  J.  Hovey,  an  ex-broker  from  New  York 
and  relative  of  a  late  Governor  of  Indiana,  drilled  a  short  distance  down  the 
creek.  The  result  was  a  strike  which  produced  twenty-four  hundred  barrels  of 
dark,  heavy,  lubricating  oil  in  fifty  days.  It  was  shut  down  for  want  of  tankage 
and  means  to  transport  the  product  to  market.  The  Carter  again  yielded  nicely, 
as  did  three  more  wells  in  this  neighborhood.  Last  year  the  Standard  Oil  Com- 
pany was  given  a  refusal  of  the  Hovey  and  surrounding  interests,  in  order  to 
test  the  territory  fully  and  lay  a  pipe-line  to  Glasgow  or  Louisville,  should 
the  production  warrant  the  expenditure.  Wells  have  been  sunk  east  of  the 
Carter  nearly  to  Monticello,  eighteen  miles  off,  finding  gas  and  indications  of 
oil.  Every  true  Clintonite  is  positive  an  ocean  of  petroleum  underlies  his  par- 
ticular neck  of  woods,  impatient  to  be  relieved  and  burden  landholders  and 
operators  alike  with  excessive  wealth  ! 

A  hard-headed  youth,  out  walking  with  his  best  girl  in  the  dog-days,  told 
her  a  fairy  story  of  the  dire  effects  of  ice-cream  upon  the  feminine  constitution. 


A     TALE   OF  TWO  STATES.  43 

"  I  knew  a  girl,"  he  declared,  "who  ate  six  plates  of  the  dreadful  stuff  and  died 
next  day!"  The  shrewd  damsel  exclaimed  rapturously  :  "Oh,  wouldn't  it  be 
sweet  to  die  that  way  ?  Let  us  begin  on  six  plates  now  !"  And  wouldn't  it  be 
nice  to  be  loaded  with  riches,  not  gained  by  freezing  out  some  other  fellow,  by 
looting  a  bank,  by  wedding  an  unloved  bride,  by  grinding  the  poor,  by  manipu- 
lating stocks,  by  cornering  grain  or  by  practices  that  make  the  angels  weep, 
but  by  bringing  oil  honestly  from  the  bowels  of  the  earth  ? 

About  the  year  1839  a  salt-well  in  Lincoln  county,  eight  miles  from  the  pretty 
town  of  Stanford,  struck  a  vein  of  oil  unexpectedly.  The  inflammable  liquid 
gushed  out  with  great  force,  took  fire  and  burned  furiously  for  weeks.  The 
owner  was  a  grim  joker  in  his  way  and  he  aptly  remarked,  upon  viewing  the 
conflagration  :  "  I  reckon  I've  got  a  little  hell  of  my  own  !"  Four  more  wells 
were  drilled  farther  up  the  stream,  two  getting  a  show  of  oil.  One  was  plugged 
and  the  other,  put  down  by  the  late  Marcus  Hulings,  the  wealthy  Pennsylvania 
operator,  proved  dry.  Surface  indications  in  many  quarters  gave  rise  to  the 
belief  that  oil  would  be  found  over  a  wide  area,  and  in  1861  a  well  was  bored  at 
Glasgow,  Barren  county,  one-hundred-and-ten  miles  below  Louisville.  It  was  a 
success  and  a  hundred  have  followed  since,  most  of  which  are  producing  mod- 
erately. Col.  J.  C.  Adams,  formerly  of  Tidioute,  Pa.,  was  the  principal  operator 
for  twenty  years.  A  suburban  town,  happily  termed  Oil  City,  is  ' '  flourishing 
like  a  green  bay  horse."  The  oil,  dark  and  ill-flavored,  smelling  worse  than 
"the  thousand  odors  of  Cologne, "  is  refined  at  Glasgow  and  Louisville.  It  can 
be  deodorized  and  converted  into  respectable  kerosene.  Sixteen  miles  south  of 
Glasgow,  on  Green  River,  four  shallow  wells  were  bored  thirty  years  ago,  one 
flowing  at  the  rate  of  six-hundred  barrels,  so  that  Barren  county  is  by  no  means 
barren  of  interest  to  the  oil  fraternity. 

At  Bowling  Green  a  well  was  sunk  two-hundred  feet,  a  few  gallons  of  green- 
oil  bowling  to  the  surface.  Torpedoing  was  unknown,  or  the  fate  of  many  Ken- 
tucky wells  might  have  been  reversed.  John  Jackson,  of  Mercer,  Pa.,  in  1866 
drilled  a  well  in  Edmonson  county,  twenty-five  miles  north-west  of  Glasgow. 
The  tools  dropped  through  a  crevice  of  the  Mammoth  Cave,  but  neither  eyeless 
fish  nor  slippery  petroleum  repaid  the  outlay  of  muscle  and  greenbacks.  As  if 
to  add  insult  to  injury,  the  well  hatched  a  mammoth  cave  that  buried  the  tools 
eight-hundred  feet  out  of  sight ! 

Loyal  to  his  early  training  and  hungry  for  appetizing  slapjacks,  Jackson  once 
imported  a  sack  of  the  flour  from  Louisville  and  asked  the  obliging  landlady  of 
his  boarding-house  to  have  buckwheat-cakes  for  breakfast.  He  was  on  hand  in 
the  morning,  ready  to  do  justice  to  the  savory  dish.  The  "cakes"  were  brought 
in  smoking  hot,  baked  into  biscuit,  heavy  as  lead  and  irredeemably  unpalatable  ! 
The  sack  of  flour  went  to  fatten  the  denizens  of  a  neighbor's  pig-pen.  Jackson 
was  a  pioneer  in  the  Bradford  region,  head  of  the  firm  of  Jackson  &  Walker, 
clever  and  generous.  The  grass  and  the  flowers  have  grown  on  his  grave  for 
ten  years,  "the  insatiate  archer"  striking  him  down  in  the  prime  of  vigorous 
manhood. 

Sandy  Valley,  in  the  north-eastern  section  of  the  state,  contributed  its  quota 
to  the  stock  of  Kentucky  petroleum.  From  the  first  settlement  of  Boyd, 
Greenup,  Carter,  Johnson  and  Lawrence  counties  oil  had  been  gathered  for 
medical  purposes  by  skimming  it  from  the  streams.  About  1855  Cummings  & 
Dixon  collected  a  half-dozen  barrels  from  Paint  Creek  and  treated  it  at  their 
coal-oil  refinery  in  Cincinnati,  with  results  similar  to  those  attained  by  Kier  in 
Pittsburg.  They  continued  to  collect  oil  from  Paint  Creek  and  Oil-Spring  Fork 


44 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


until  the  war.  at  times  saving  a  hundred  barrels  a  month.  In  1861  they  drilled 
a  well  three-hundred  feet  on  Mud  Lick,  a  branch  of  Paint  Creek,  penetrating 
shale  and  sandstone  and  getting  light  shows  of  oil  and  gas.  Surface-oil  was 
found  on  the  Big  Sandy  River,  from  its  source  to  its  mouth,  and  in  considerable 
quantities  on  Paint,  Elaine,  Abbott,  Middle,  John's  and  Wolf  Creeks.  Large 
springs  on  Oil-Spring  Fork,  a  feeder  of  Paint  Creek,  yielded  a  barrel  a  day.  At 
the  mouth  of  the  Fork,  in  1860,  Lyon  &  Co.  drilled  a  well  two-hundred  feet, 

tapping  three  veins  of  heavy  oil  and  re- 
tiring from  the  scene  when  ' '  the  late  un- 
pleasantness "  began  to  shake  up  the 
country.  The  same  year  a  well  was 
sunk  one-hundred-and-seventy  feet,  on 
the  headwaters  of  Licking  River,  near 
the  Great  Burning  Spring.  Gas  and  oil 
burst  out  for  days,  but  the  low  price  of 
crude  and  the  impending  conflict  pre- 
vented further  work.  What  an  innumera- 
ble array  of  nice  calculations  this  cruel 
war  nipped  in  the  bud  ! 

J.  Hinkley  bored  two-hundred  feet 
in  1860,  on  Paint  Creek,  eight  miles 
above  Paintville,  meeting  a  six-inch 
crevice  of  heavy-oil,  for  which  there  was 
no  demand,  and  the  capacity  of  the  well 
was  not  tested.  Salt-borers  on  a  multi- 
NORTH-EASTERN  KENTUCKY.  tude  of  streams  had  much  difficulty,  fifty 

orsixty  years  ago,  in  getting  rid  of  oil  that 

persisted  in  coming  to  the  surface.  These  old  wells  have  been  filled  with  dirt, 
although  in  some  the  oil  works  to  the  top  and  can  be  seen  during  the  dry  sea- 
sons. The  Paint-Creek  region  had  a  severe  attack  of  oil-fever  in  1864-5.  Hun- 
dreds of  wells  were  drilled,  boats  were  crowded,  the  hotels  were  thronged  and 
the  one  subject  of  conversation  was  "oil — oil— oil !"  Various  causes,  especially 
the  extraordinary  developments  in  Pennsylvania,  compelled  the  plucky  operators 
to  abandon  the  district,  notwithstanding  encouraging  symptoms  of  an  important 
field.  Indeed,  so  common  was  it  to  find  petroleum  in  ten  or  fifteen  counties  of 
Kentucky  that  land-owners  ran  a  serious  risk  in  selling  their  farms  before  boring 
them  full  of  holes,  lest  they  should  unawares  part  with  prospective  oil-territory 
at  corn-fodder  prices  ! 

Tennessee  did  not  draw  a  blank  in  the  awards  of  petroleum  indications. 
Along  Spring  Creek  many  wells,  located  in  1864-5  because  of  "  surface-shows," 
responded  nobly,  at  a  depth  comparatively  shallow,  to  the  magic  touch  of  the 
drill.  The  product  was  lighter  in  color  and  gravity  than  the  Kentucky  brand. 
Twelve  miles  above  Nashville,  on  the  Cumberland  River,  wells  have  been  pumped 
at  a  profit.  Around  Gallatin,  Sumner  county,  decisive  tests  demonstrated  the 
presence  of  petroleum  in  liberal  measure.  On  Obey  Creek,  Fentress  county, 
sufficient  drilling  has  been  done  to  j  ustify  the  expectation  of  a  rich  district.  Near 
Chattanooga,  on  the  southern  border  of  the  state,  oil  seepages  are  ''  too  numer- 
ous to  mention."  The  Lacy  Well,  eighteen  miles  south  of  the  Beatty,  drilled  in 
1893,  is  good  for  thirty  barrels  every  day  in  the  week.  The  oil  is  of  superior 
quality,  but  the  cost  of  marketing  it  is  too  great.  A  dozen  wells  are  going 
down  in  Fentress,  Overton,  Scott  and  Putnam.  Some  fine  day  the  tidal  wave  of 


A     TALE  OF  TWO  STATES. 


45 


development  will  sweep  over  the  Cumberland-River  region,  with  improved  appli- 
ances and  complete  equipment,  and  give  the  country  a  rattling  "show  for  its 
white  alley!"  Surely  all  these  spouting- wells,  oil-springs  and  greasy  oozings 
mean  something.  To  quote  a  practical  oilman,  who  knows  both  states  from  a 
to  z  :  "Twenty  counties  in  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  are  sweating  petroleum  !" 

Picking  up  a  million  acres  of  supposed  oil-lands  in  the  Blue-Grass  and  Vol- 
unteer States  had  its  serio-comic  features.  The  ignorant  squatters  in  remote 
latitudes  were  suspicious  of  strangers,  imagining  them  to  be  revenue-officers  on 
the  trail  of  "moonshiners,"  as  makers  of  untaxed  whisky  were  generally  called. 
More  than  one  northern  oilman  narrowly  escaped  premature  death  on  this  con- 
jecture. J.  A.  Satterfield,  the  successful  Butler  operator,  went  to  Kentucky  in 
the  winter  of  1877  to  superintend  the  leasing  of  territory  for  his  firm,  between 
which  and  the  Prentice  combination  a  lively  scramble  had  been  inaugurated. 
Somebody  thought  he  must  be  a  Government  agent  and  passed  the  word  to  the 
lawless  mountaineers.  The  second  night  of  his  stay  a  shower  of  bullets  riddled 
the  window,  two  lodging  in  the  bed  in  which  Satterfield  lay  asleep  !  Daylight 
saw  him  galloping  to  the  railroad  at  a  pace  eclipsing  Sheridan's  ride  to  Win- 
chester, eager  to  "get  back  to  God's 
country. "  "  Once  was  enough  for  him ' ' 
to  figure  as  the  target  of  shooters  who  sel- 
dom failed  to  score  ' '  a  hit,  a  palpable  hit. ' ' 
Alas  !  the  grim  archer  didn't  miss  him  in 
1894. 

Arriving  late  one  Saturday  at  Mt. 
Vernon,  the  county  seat  of  Rockcastle, 
the  colored  waiter  on  Sunday  morning  in- 
quired :  ' '  Hes  yo  done  gone  an'  seen  em  ?' ' 
Asking  what  he  meant,  he  informed  me 
that  three  men  were  dangling  from  a  tree 
in  the  court-house  yard,  lynched  by  an  in- 
furiated mob  during  the  night  on  suspicion 
of  horse-stealing,  "the  unpardonable  sin" 
in  Kentucky.  A  party  of  citizens  had  start- 
ed  for  the  cabin  of  a  notorious  outlaw,  ob- 
served  skulking  homeward  under  cover  of 
darkness,  intending  to  string  him  up.  The 
desperado  was  alert.  He  fired  one  shot, 

which  killed  a  man  and  stampeded  the  assailants.  They  returned  to  the  village, 
broke  into  the  jail,  dragged  out  three  cowering  wretches  and  hanged  them  in 
short  metre  !  The  bodies  swung  in  the  air  all  day,  a  significant  warning  to  who- 
ever might  think  of  "  walkin'  off  with  a  hoss  critter.  " 

On  that  trip  to  Rockcastle  county  the  train  stopped  at  a  wayside  station 
bearing  the  pretentious  epithet  of  Chicago.  A  tall,  gaunt,  unshaven,  uncombed 
man,  with  gnarled  hands  that  appealed  perpetually  for  soap  and  water,  high 
cheekbones,  imperfect  teeth  and  homespun  clothes  of  the  toughest  description, 
stood  on  the  platform  in  a  pool  of  tobacco-juice.  A  rustic  behind  me  stuck  his 
head  through  the  car-window  and  addressed  the  hard-looking  citizen  as 
"Jedge."  Honors  are  easy  in  Kentucky,  where  "colonels,"  "majors"  and 
"judges"  are  "  thick  as  leaves  in  Vallambrosa,"  but  the  title  in  this  instance 
seemed  too  absurd  to  pass  unheeded.  When  the  train  started,  in  reply  to  my 
question  whether  the  man  on  the  platform  was  a  real  judge,  his  friendly  ac- 


46 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


quaintance  took  the  pains  to  say  :  "Wai,  I  can't  swar  es  he's  zackly,  but  las' 
year  he  wuz  jedge  ov  a  chicken-fight  down  ter  Si  Mason's  an'  we  calls  'im  jedge 
ever  sence !" 

Kentucky  vendettas  have  often  figured  in  thrilling  narratives  Business 
took  me  to  the  upper  end  of  Laurel  county  one  week.  Litigants,  witnesses  and 
hangers-on  crowded  the  village,  for  a  suit  of  unusual  interest  was  pending  before 
the  "  "squar."  The  principals  were 
farmers  from  the  hilly  region,  whose 
fathers  and  grandfathers  had  been  at 
loggerheads  and  transmitted  the  quar- 
rel to  their  posterity.  Blood  had  been 
shed  and  hatred  reigned  supreme.  The 
important  case  was  about  to  begin. 
Two  shots  rang  out  so  closely  together 
as  to  be  almost  simultaneous,  followed 
by  a  regular  fusilade.  Everybody  ran 
into  the  street,  where  four  men  lay 
dead,  a  fifth  was  gasping  his  last  breath 
and  two  others  had  ugly  wounds .  The 
tragedy  was  soon  explained.  The  two 
parties  to  the  suit  had  met  on  their 

way  to  the  justice's  house.     Both  were   __  _^ 

armed,    both   drew   pistols   and  both  A  MOUNTAIN  VENDETTA. 

dropped  in  their  tracks,  one  a  corpse 

and  the  second  ready  for  the  coroner  in  a  few  moments.  Relatives  and  adher- 
ents continued  the  dreadful  work  and  five  lives  paid  the  penalty  of  ungovern- 
able passion.  The  dead  were  wrapped  in  horse-blankets  and  carted  home.  The 
case  was  not  called.  It  had  been  settled  " out  of  court." 

The  spectators  of  this  dreadful  scene  manifested  no  uncommon  concern. 
"It's  what  might  be  expected,"  echoed 
the  local  oracle;  "when  them  mountain 
fellers  gets  whiskey  inside  them  they  don't 
*~7--— •  care  fur  nuthin' !"  Within  an  hour  of  the 
shooting  a  young  man  stopped  me  on  the 
:•  street-corner,  where  stood  a  wagon  con- 
i  taining  two  bodies.  "  Kunnel,"  he  went 
on  to  say,  ' '  I've  h'ard  es  yo's  th'  man 
es  got  our  farm  fur  oil.  Dad  an'  Cousin 
Bill's  'n  that  ar  wagon,  an'  I  want  yo  ter 
giv'  me  a  job  haulin'  wood  agin  yo  starts 
work  up  our  way."  He  mounted  the  ve- 
F  hicle  and  drove  off  with  his  ghastly  freight 
:  without  a  quiver  of  emotion. 

At  Crab  Orchard,  one  beautiful  Sun- 
day, the  clerk  chatted  with  me  on  the 
hotel  porch.  A  stalwart  individual  ap- 
proached and  my  companion  ejaculated  : 
"  Thar's  a  bigger  man 'nGen'ral  Grant!" 
Next  instant  Col.  Kennedy  was  added  to  my  list  of  Kentucky  acquaintances. 
He  was  very  affable,  wished  oil- operations  in  the  neighborhood  success  and, 
with  characteristic  Southern  hospitality,  invited  me  to  visit  him.  After  he  left 


IGGER   MAN   'N  GEN  RAL  GRANT.' 


A    TALE  OF  TWO  STA  TES.  47 

us  the  clerk,  in  answer  to  my  desire  to  learn  the  basis  of  Kennedy's  greatness, 
naively  said  :  "Why,  he's  killed  eight  men  !" 

Politics  and  religion  were  staple  wares,  the  susceptible  negroes  inclining 
strongly  to  the  latter.  Their  spasms  of  piety  were  extremely  inconvenient  at 
times.  News  of  a  "  bush  meetin '  ' '  would  be  circulated  and  swarms  of  darkeys 
would  flock  to  the  appointed  place,  taking  provisions  for  a  protracted  siege. 
No  matter  if  it  were  the  middle  of  harvest  and  rain  threatening,  they  dropped 
everything  and  went  to  the  meeting.  "  Doant  'magine  dis  niggah's  gwine  ter 
lose  his  'mo'tal  soul  fer  no  load  uv  cow-feed"  was  the  conclusive  rejoinder  of  a 
colored  hand  to  his  employer,  who  besought  him  to  stay  and  finish  the  haying. 
Rev.  George  O.  Barnes,  the  gifted  evangelist,  who  resigned  a  five-thousand- 
dollar  Presbyterian  pastorate  in  Chicago  to  assist  Moody,  was  reared  in  Ken- 
tucky and  lived  near  Stanford.  He  would  traverse  the  country  to  hold  revi- 
vals, staying  three  to  six  weeks  in  a  place.  His  personal  magnetism,  rare  elo- 
quence, apostolic  zeal,  fine  education,  intense  fervor  and  catholic  spirit  made 
him  a  wonderful  power.  Converts  he  numbered  by  thousands.  He  preferred 
Calvary  to  Sinai,  the  gentle  pleadings  of  infinite  mercy  to  the  harsh  threats  of 
endless  torment.  His  daughter  Marie,  with  the  voice  of  a  Nilsson  and  the  face 
of  a  Madonna,  accompanied  her  father  in  his  wanderings,  singing  gospel-hymns 
in  a  manner  that  distanced  Sankey  and  Philip  Phillips.  Her  rendering  of  "  Too 
Late,"  "Almost- Persuaded,"  and  "Only  a  Step  to  Jesus,"  electrified  and 
thrilled  the  auditors  as  no  stage-song  could  have  done.  Raymon  Moore's 
hackneyed  verses  had  not  been  written,  yet  the  boys  called  Miss  Barnes  "Sweet 
Marie"  and  thronged  to  the  penitent  bench.  The  evangelist  and  his  daughter 
tried  to  convert  New  York,  but  the  Tammany  stronghold  refused  to  budge  an 
inch.  They  invaded  England  and  enrolled  hosts  of  recruits  for  Zion.  The 
Prince  of  Wales  is  said  to  have  attended  one  of  their  meetings  in  the  suburbs  of 
London.  Mr.  Barnes  finally  proposed  to  cure  diseases  by  "  anointing  with  oil 
and  laying  on  of  hands."  His  pink  cottage  became  a  refuge  for  cranks  and 
cripples  and  patients,  until  a  mortgage  on  the  premises  was  foreclosed  and  the 
queer  aggregation  scattered  to  the  winds. 

Albany,  the  county-seat  of  Clinton,  experienced  a  Barnes  revival  of  the  tip- 
top order.  Business  with  Major  Brentz,  the  company's  attorney,  landed  me  in 
the  cosy  town  on  a  bright  March  forenoon.  Not  a  person  was  visible.  Stores 
were  shut  and  corner-loungers  absent.  What  could  have  happened  ?  Halting 
my  team  in  front  of  the  hotel,  nobody  appeared.  Ringing  the  quaint,  old-fash- 
ioned bell  attached  to  a  post  near  the  pump,  a  lame,  bent  colored  man  shuffled 
out  of  the  barn. 

"Pow'fulglad  ter  see  yer,  Massa,"  he  mumbled  slowly,"  a'l  put  up  de 
hosses." 

"  Where  is  the  landlord  ?" 

"Done  gone  ter  meetin'." 

"  Will  dinner  soon  be  ready  ?" 

"Soon's  de  folkses  gits  back  frum  meetin'." 

"  All  right,  take  good  care  of  the  horses  and  I'll  go  over  to  the  court-house." 

"  No  good  gwine  dar,  dey's  at  the  meetin'." 

It  was  true.  Mr.  Barnes  was  holding  three  services  a  day  and  the  village 
emptied  itself  to  get  within  sound  of  his  voice.  For  five  weeks  this  kept  up. 
Lawyers  quit  their  desks,  merchants  locked  their  stores,  women  deserted  their 
houses  and  young  and  old  thought  only  of  the  meetings.  Hardly  a  sinner  was 


4s 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


left  to  work  upon,  even  the  village-editor  and  the  disciples  of  Blackstone  joining 
the  hallelujah  band ! 

An  African  congregation  at  Stanford  had  a  preacher  black  as  the  ace  of 
spades  and  wholly  illiterate,  whom  many  whites  liked  to  hear.  "  Brudders  an 
sisters,  niggahsand  white  folks,"  he  closed  an  exhortation  by  saying,  "dar'sno 
use  'temptin'  ter  sneak  outen  de  wah  'tween  the  good  Lawd  an'  de  bad  debbil, 
'cos  dar's  on'y  two  armies  in  dis  worP  an'  bofe  am  a-fitin'  eberlastingly  !  So 
'list  en  de  army  ob  light,  ef  yer  want  ter  gib  ole  Satan  er  black  eye  an'  not  roast 
fureber  an'  eber  in  de  burnin'  lake  whar  watah-millions  on  ice  am  nebber  se'ved 
for  dinnah  ! ' '  Could  the  most  astute  theological  hair-splitter  have  presented  the 
issue  more  concisely  and  forcibly  to  the  hearers  of  the  sable  Demosthenes? 

The  first  and  only  circus  that  exhibited  at  Burksville  produced  an  immense 
sensation.  It  was  ' '  Bartholomew's  Equescurriculum, "  with  gymnastics  and  ring 
exercises  to  round  out  the  bill.  Barns,  shops  and  trees  for  miles  bore  gorgeous 
posters.  Nast's  cartoons,  which  the  most  ignorant  voters  could  understand, 
did  more  to  overthrow  Boss  Tweed  than  the  masterly  editorials  of  the  New- 
York  Times.  The  flaming  pictures  aroused  the  Cumberlanders,  hundreds  of 
whom  could  not  read,  to  the  highest  pitch  of  expectation.  Monday  was  the  day 
set  for  the  show.  On  Saturday  evening  country-patrons  began  to  camp  in  the 
woods  outside  the  village.  A  couple  from  Overton  county,  Tennessee,  and  their 
four  children  rode  twenty-eight  miles  on  two  mules,  bringing  food  for  three  days 
and  lodging  under  the  trees  !  A  Burksville  character  of  the  stripe  Miss  Ophelia 
styled  "shiftless"  sold  his  cooking-stove  for  four  dollars  to  get  funds  to  attend  ! 
"Alf,"  the  ebony-hued  choreman  at  Alexander  College,  who  built  my  fires  and 
blacked  my  shoes,  was  worked  up  to  fever-heat.  "  Befo'  de  Lawd,"  he 
sobbed,  '  'dis  chile's  er  gone  coon,  'less  yer  len'  er  helpin'  han' !  Mah  wife's 
axed  her  mudder  an'  sister  ter  th'  ci'cus  an'  dar's  no  munny  ter  take  'em  an' 
mah  sister !"  Giving  him  the  currency  for  admission  dried  the  mourner's  tears 
and  "  pushed  them  clouds  away. " 

At  noon  on  Sunday  the  circus  arrived  by  boat  from  Nashville.  Service  was 
in  progress  in  one  church,  when  an  un- 
earthly sound  startled  the  worshippers. 
The  wail  of  a  lost  soul  could  not  be  more 
alarming.  Simon  Legree,  scared  out  of 
his  boots  by  the  mocking  shriek  of  the 
wind  blowing  through  the  bottle-neck 
j,Cassy  fixed  in  the  garret  knot-hole,  had 
'numerous  imitators.  Again  and  again 
the  ozone  was  rent  and  cracked  and  shiv- 
ered. The  congregation  broke  for  the 
door,  the  minister  jerking  out  a  sawed- 
off  benediction  and  retreating  with  the 
rest.  A  half-mile  down  the  river  a  boat 
was  rounding  the  Dfend.  A  steam-calli- 
ope, distracting,  discordant  and  unlovely, 

__  ^  belched  forth  a  torrent  of  paralyzing 

AN^AKRICAN  TALE  OF  WOE  notes.    The  whole  population  was  on  the 

bank  by  the  time  the  boat  stopped.    The 

crowd  watched  the  landing  of  the  animals  and  belongings  of  the  circus  with  un- 
flinching eagerness.  Few  of  the  surging  mass  had  seen  a  theatre,  a  circus,  or 
a  show  of  any  sort  except  the  Sunday-school  Christmas  performance.  They 


A    TALE  OF   TWO  STATES. 


49 


were  bound  to  take  in  every  detail  and  that  Sunday  was  badly  splintered  in  the 
peaceful,  orderly  settlement. 

With  the  earliest  streak  of  dawn  the  excitement  was  renewed.  Groups  of 
adults  and  children,  of  all  ages  and  sizes  and  complexions,  were  on  hand  to  see 
the  tents  put  up.  By  eleven  o'clock  the  town  was  packed.  A  merry-go-round, 
the  first  Burksville  ever  saw,  raked  in  a  bushel  of  nickels.  The  college  domes- 
tics skipped,  leaving  the  breakfast  dishes  on  the  table  and  the  dinner  to  shift  for 
itself.  A  party  of  friends  went  with  me  to  enjoy  the  fun.  Beside  a  gap  in  the 
fence,  to  let  wagons  into  the  field,  sat  "Alf,"  the  image  of  despair.  Four 
weeping  females — his  wife,  sister,  mother-in-law  and  sister-in-law — crouched  at 
his  feet.  As  our  party  drew  near  he  beckoned  to  us  and  unfolded  his  tale  of 
woe.  "  Dem  fool-wimmin, "  he  exclaimed  bitterly,  "hes  done  spended  de  free 
dollars  yer  guv  me  on  de  flyin'-hosses  !  Dey  woodn't  stay  off  nohow  an'  now 
dey  caint  see  de  ci'cus  !  Oh,  Lawd  !  Oh,  Lawd  !"  The  purchase  of  tickets 
poured  oil  on  the  troubled  waters.  The  Niobes  wiped  their  eyes  on  their  jean- 
aprons  and  "  Richard  was  himself  again."  How  the  antics  of  the  clowns  and 
the  tricks  of  the  ponies  pleased  the  motley  assemblage  !  Buck  Fanshaw's  fune- 
ral did  not  arouse  half  the  enthusiasm  in  Virginia  City  the  first  circus  did  in 
Burksville. 

It  was  necessary  for  me  to  visit  Williamsburg,  the  county-seat  of  Whitley, 
to  record  a  stack  of  leases.  Somerset  was  then  the  nearest  railway-point  and  the 
trip  of  fifty  miles  on  horseback  required 
a  guide.  The  arrival  of  a  Northerner 
raised  a  regular  commotion  in  the  well- 
nigh  inaccessible  settlement  of  four-hun- 
dred population.  The  landlord  of  the 
public-house  slaughtered  his  fattest  chick- 
ens and  set  up  a  bed  in  the  front  parlor  to 
be  sure  of  my  comfort.  The  jailer's  fair 
daughter,  who  was  to  be  wedded  that 
evening,  kindly  sent  me  an  invitation  to 
attend  the  nuptials.  By  nine  o'clock  at 
night  nearly  every  business-man  and  offi- 
cial in  the  place  had  called  to  bid  me 
welcome.  Before  noon  next  day  seven- 
teen farmers,  whose  lands  had  been 
leased,  rode  into  town  to  greet  me  and 
learn  when  drilling  would  likely  begin. 
Each  insisted  upon  my  staying  with  him 
a  week,  "ores  much  longer  es  yo  kin,"  -^^ 
and  fourteen  of  them  brought  gallon-jugs 
of  apple-jack,  their  own  straight  goods,  for  my  acceptance  !  Such  a  reception 
a  king  might  envy,  because  it  was  entirely  unselfish,  hearty  and  spontaneous. 
Williamsburg  has  got  out  of  swaddling-clothes,  the  railway  putting  it  in  touch 
with  the  balance  of  creation. 

Thirteen  miles  of  land,  in  an  unbroken  line,  on  a  meandering  stream,  had 
been  tied-up,  with  the  exception  of  a  single  farm.  The  owner  was  obdurate  and 
refused  to  lease  on  any  terms.  Often  lands  not  regarded  favorably  as  oil  terri- 
tory were  taken  to  secure  the  right-of-way  for  pipe-lines,  as  the  leases  conveyed 
this  privilege.  Driving  past  the  stubborn  fanner's  homestead  one  afternoon,  he 
was  chopping  wood  in  the  yard  and  strode  to  the  gate  to  talk.  His  bright-eyed 


A   WELCOME    IN   JUGS. 


50  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE- OIL. 

daughter  of  four  summers  endeavored  to  clamber  into  the  buggy.  Handing  the 
cute  fairy  in  coarse  jeans  a  new  silver-dollar,  fresh  from  the  Philadelphia  mint, 
the  father  caught  sight  of  the  shining  coin. 

"Hev  yo  mo'  ov  'em  'ar  dollars  about  yo?"  he  asked. 

"  Plenty  more." 

"Make  out  leases  fur  my  three  farms  an'  me  an'  the  old  woman  '11  sign 
'em  !  I  want  three  ov  'em  kines,  for  they  be  th'  slickest  Demmycratic  money 
my  eyes  hes  sot  onto  sence  I  fit  with  John  Morgan  !" 

The  documents  were  filled  up,  signed,  sealed  and  delivered  in  fifteen  min- 
utes. The  chain  of  leased  lands  along  Fanny  Creek  was  intact,  with  the  "  miss- 
ing link  "  missing  at  last. 

The  simplicity  of  these  dwellers  in  the  wilderness  was  equaled  only  by  their 
apathy  to  the  world  beyond  and  around  them.  Parents  loved  their  children  and 
husbands  loved  their  wives  in  a  quiet,  unobtrusive  fashion.  "She  wuz  a  hard- 
workin'  woman,"  moaned  a  middle-aged  widower  in  Fentress  county,  telling 
me  of  his  deceased  spouse,  "  an'  she  allers  wore  a  frock  five  year,  an'  she  hed 
'leven  chil'ren,  an'  she  died  right  in  corn-shuckin' !"  He  was  not  stony-hearted, 
but  twenty-five  years  of  married  companionship  meant  to  him  just  so  many  days' 
work,  so  many  cheap  frocks,  child-bearing,  corn-cake  and  bacon  always  ready 
on  time.  Among  these  people  woman  was  a  drudge,  who  knew  nothing  of 
the  higher  relations  of  life.  Children  were  huddled  into  the  hills  to  track  game> 
to  follow  the  plough  or  to  drop  corn  over  many  a  weary  acre.  Reading  and 
writing  were  unknown  accomplishments.  Jackson,  "the  great  tradition  of  the 
uninformed  American  mind,"  and  Lincoln,  whose  name  the  tumult  of  a  mighty 
struggle  had  rendered  familiar,  were  the  only  Presidents  they  had  ever  heard  of. 
"  Where  ignorance  is  bliss  'tis  folly  to  be  wise"  may  be  a  sound  poetical  sen- 
timent, but  it  was  decidedly  overdone  in  South-eastern  Kentucky  and  North- 
eastern Tennessee  so  recently  as  the  year  of  the  Philadelphia  Centennial. 

Opposite  the  Hovey  and  Carter  wells  in  Clinton  county  lives  a  portly  far- 
mer who  "  is  a  good  man  and  weighs  two-hundred-and-fi fty  pounds. ' '  He  is 
known  far  and  wide  as  "  Uncle  John  "  and  his  wife,  a  pleasant-faced  little  ma- 
tron, is  affectionately  called  ' '  Aunt  Rachel. ' '  A  log-church  a  mile  from  ' '  Uncle 
John's"  is  situated  on  a  pretty  hill.  There  the  young  folks  are  married,  the 
children  are  baptized  and  the  dead  are  buried.  The  "June  meetin',"  when 
services  are  held  for  a  week,  is  the  grand  incident  of  the  year  to  the  people  for 
a  score  of  miles.  In  December  of  1893  Dr.  Phillips,  of  Monticello,  drove  me  to 
the  wells.  We  stopped  at  "Uncle  John's."  As  we  neared  the  house  a  dog 
barked  and  the  hospitable  farmer  came  out  to  meet  us.  Behind  him  walked  a 
man  who  greeted  the  Doctor  cordially.  He  glanced  at  me,  recognition  was 
mutual  and  we  clasped  hands  warmly.  He  was  Alfred  Murray,  formerly  con- 
nected with  the  Pennsylvania  Consolidated  Land  and  Petroleum  Company  in 
Butler  and  at  Bradford.  Fourteen  years  had  glided  away  since  we  met  and 
there  were  many  questions  to  ask  and  answer.  He  had  been  in  the  neighbor- 
hood a  twelvemonth,  keeping  tab  on  oil  movements  and  indications,  hoping, 
longing  and  praying  for  the  speedy  advent  of  the  petroleum  millenium.  We 
pumped  the  Hovey  Well  one  hour,  rambled  over  the  hills  and  talked  until  mid- 
night about  persons  and  things  in  Pennsylvania.  Meeting  in  so  dreary  a  place, 
under  such  circumstances,  was  as  thorough  a  surprise  as  Stanley's  discovery  of 
Livingstone  in  Darkest  Africa.  During  our  conversation  regarding  the  roughest 
portion  of  the  county,  bleak,  sterile  and  altogether  repellant,  selected  by  a  her- 
mit as  his  lonely  retreat,  my  friend  remarked  :  "  I  have  heard  that  the  poor  devil 


A   TALE  OF  TWO  STA  TES. 


was  troubled  with  remorse  and,  as  a  sort  of  penance,  vowed  to  live  as  near 
Sheol  as  possible  until  he  died  !" 

The  stage  that  bore  me  from  Monticello  to  Point  Burnside  on  my  home- 
ward journey  stopped  half-way  to  take  up  a  countryman  and  an  aged  woman. 
Room  was  found  inside  for  the  latter,  a  stout,  motherly  old  creature,  into  whose 
beaming  face  it  did  jaded  mortals  good  to  look.  She  said  "howdy"  to  the 
three  passengers,  a  local  trader,  a  farmer's  young  wife  and  myself,  sat  down 
solidly  and  fixed  her  gaze  upon  me  intently.  It  was  evident  the  dear  soul  was 
fairly  bursting  with  impatience  to  find  out  about  the  stranger.  Not  a  word  was 
spoken  until  she  could  restrain  her  inquisitive  impulse  no  longer. 

"  Yo  don't  liv'  eroun'  these  air  parts  ?"  she  interrogated. 

"  No,  madam,  my  home  is  in  Pennsylvania." 

"Land  sakes  !     Be  yo  one  ov  'em  air  ile-fellers  ?" 

"Yes." 

"Wai,  I  be  orful  glad  ter  see  yo !"  and  she  stretched  out  her  hand  and 
shook  mine  vigorously.  "  Hope  yo're  right  peart,  but  yo'  be  a  long  way  from 
home  !  Did  yo  see  'em  wells  over  thar  by  Aunt  Rachel's  ?" 

"  Oh,  yes,  I  saw  the  wells  and  stayed  at  Aunt  Rachel's  all  night." 

"I  ain't  seed  Aunt  Rachel  for  nigh  a  year  an'  a  half.  My  old  man  hed 
roomatiz  and  we  couldn't  get  ter  meetin'  this  summer.  He  sez  thar's  ile  onto 
our  farm.  I  be  seventy-four  an'  him  on 
the  ruf  be  my  son'n-law.  Yo  see  he 
married,  Jess  did,  my  darter  Sally  an' 
tha  moved  ter  a  place  tha  call  Kansas. 
Tha'  s  bin  thar  seventeen  year  an'  hes  six 
chil'ren.  Jess  he  cum  back  las'  week 
ter  see  his  fokeses  an'  he  be  takin'  me 
ter  Kansas  ter  see  Sally  an'  the  babies. 
I  never  seed  'em  things  Jess  calls  cyars, 
an'  he  sez  tha  ain't  drord  by  no  hoss 
nuther !  I  wuz  bo'n  eight  mile  down 
hyar  an'  never  wuz  from  home  more'n 
eighteen  mile,  when  we  goes  ter  June 
meetin'.  But  I  be  ter  Monticeller  six 
times." 

Truly  this  was  a  natural  specimen, 
bubbling  over  with  kindness,  unspoiled 
by  fashion  and  envy  and  frivolity  and 
superficial  pretense.  Here  was  the 
counterpart  of  Cowper's  humble  hero- 
ine, who  "knew,  and  knew  no  more,  her  Bible  true."  The  wheezy  stage  was 
brighter  for  her  presence.  She  told  of  her  family,  her  cows,  her  pigs,  her  spin- 
ning and  her  neighbors.  She  lived  four  miles  from  the  Cumberland  River,  yet 
never  went  to  see  a  steamboat !  When  we  alighted  at  the  Burnside  station  and 
the  train  dashed  up  she  looked  sorely  perplexed.  "Jess"  helped  her  up  the 
steps  and  the  "cyars  "  started.  The  whistle  screeched,  daylight  vanished  and 
the  train  had  entered  the  tunnel  below  the  depot.  A  fearful  scream  pierced  the 
ears  of  the  passengers.  The  good  woman  seventy-four  years  old,  who  "never 
seed  'em  things  "  before  was  terribly  frightened.  We  tried  to  reassure  her,  but 
she  begged  to  be  let  off.  How  "Jess"  managed  to  get  her  to  Kansas  safely 
may  be  imagined.  But  what  a  story  she  would  have  to  tell  about  the  "  cyars" 


BE  ORFUL  GLAD  TER  SEE  YO  !" 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


and  "Sally  an'  the  babies"  when  she  returned  to  her  quiet  home  after  such  a 
trip  !     Bless  her  old  heart ! 

Although  the  broad  hills  and  sweeping  streams  which  grouped  many  sweet 
panoramas  might  be  dull  and  meaningless  to  the  average  Kentuckian  of 
former  days,  through  some  brains  glowing  visions  flitted.  Two  miles  south  of 
Columbia,  Adair  county,  on  the  road  to  Burksville,  a  heap  of  stones  and  pieces 

of  rotting  timber  may  still  be  seen.  Fifty- 
five  years  ago  the  man  who  owned  the  farm 
constructed  a  huge  wheel,  loaded  with 
rocks  of  different  weights  on  its  strong 
arms.  Neighbors  jeered  and  ridiculed, 
just  as  scoffers  laughed  at  Noah's  ark  and 
thought  it  wouldn't  be  much  of  a  shower 
anyway.  The  hour  to  start  the  wheel  ar- 
rived and  its  builder  stood  by.  A  rock  on 
'  an  arm  of  the  structure  slipped  off  and 
^.  struck  him  a  fatal  blow,  felling  him  life- 
less to  the  earth  !  He  was  a  victim  of  the 
craze  to  solve  the  problem  of  Perpetual 
Motion.  Who  can  tell  what  dreams  and 
^  plans  and  fancies  and  struggles  beset  this 

/^•xEffT    ';"S::;=:;?5~i=!?:S^^^^<:~    obscure  genius,  cut  off  at  the  moment  he 
J- i/1  ft      '  iH^E^s^  =i~-^         anticipated  a  triumph?    The  wheel  was 

permitted  to  crumble  and  decay,  no  hu- 
man hand  touching  it  more.  The  heap 
of  stones  is  a  pathetic  memento  of  a  sad 
tragedy.  Not  far  from  the  spot  Mark 


"  EF  YO  KNOW'D  COUSIN  JIM." 


Twain  was   born  and  John   Fitch  whittled  out  the  rough   model  of  the  first 
steamboat. 

Riding  in  Scott  county,  Tennessee,  at  full  gallop  on  a  rainy  afternoon,  a 
cadaverous  man  emerged  from  a  miserable  hut  and  hailed  me.  The  dialogue 
was  not  prolonged  unduly. 

"Gen'ral,"  he  queried,  "airyoth1  oilman  frum  Pennsylvany  ?" 

"  Yes,  what  can  I  do  for  you?" 

"  I  jes'  wanted  ter  ax  ef  yo  know'd  my  cousin  Jim  !" 

"Who  is  your  cousin  Jim  ?  " 

"  Law,  Jim  Sickles  !"  I  tho't  ez  how  evr'ybody  know'd  Jim  !  He  went  up 
No'th  arter  th'  wah  an'  ain't  cum  back  yit.  Ef  yo  see  'im  tell  'im  yo  seed  me  !  " 

A  promise  to  look  out  for  "Jim"  satisfied  the  verdant  backwoodsman,  who 
probably  had  never  been  ten  miles  from  his  shanty  and  deemed  "  up  No'th"  a 
place  about  the  size  of  a  Tennessee  hunting-ground  ! 

Fair  women,  pure  Bourbon  and  men  extra  plucky, 
No  wonder  blue-grass  folks  esteem  themselves  lucky — 
But  wait  till  the  oil  boom  gets  down  to  Kentucky  ! 

Let  Fortune  assume  forms  and  fancies  Protean, 
No  matter  for  that,  there  will  rise  a  loud  paean 
So  long  as  oil  gladdens  the  proud  Tennesseean  ! 


FIGURES   THAT    COUNT. 

PRODUCTION  AND  PRICES   OF   CRUDE   PETROLEUM   IN   PENNSYLVANIA  FROM  SEPTEMBER 
1859,  TO  DECEMBER  31,  1895. 


WELLS 

fEARS. 

1859  . 

1860. 

1862  . 

1863 

1,873 

$20  00 

2  75 

10 
10 
2   25 

4  oo 
4  62^ 

2   I2H 

I  75 
i  95 
4  95 
3  15 
382^ 
3  15 

I    00 

55 
i  03 
i  80 
i  80 
82% 
67/8 
80 
81* 
54^ 

92^ 

63K 
70% 
62/8 
5914 
76 
83* 
67% 
59 
52 
53Y2 
80 
o8f4 

19  25 

I    00 
2   25 

337^ 

12    12* 

8  25 
4  5° 
3  55 
5  12* 
695 
452* 
4  82* 
4  92* 

2  60 

I  90 

i  75 
38i 
3  53K 
i  65* 

I    IO& 

95* 

I   27J/8 

i  16% 
i  11% 
i  05* 

883X 
80 
93% 
i  o8/8 
i  05 
77% 
64% 
78ft 
gift 

I  79^ 

9  60 
49 
i  05 
3  15 
9  87* 
659 
3  74 
41 
362* 
563^ 
389 
4  34 
364 
i  83 
i  17 
1  35 
256« 

2  42 
I    J9 

85% 

94* 
855i 
78^8 
i  06^ 
833X 
88^ 
7i# 
66% 
87 
94 
86% 
663^ 
55^ 
64 
84 

I   3S1/ 

1,183 
1,263 
1,317 
2,398 
2,920 

3,939 
3,064 
3,048 
4,217 
3,88o 
3,304 
2,847 
2,265 
2,761 
3,478 
i,  660 
1,515 
5,434 
6,435 
3,39° 
i,954 
1,980 
3,756 

547,439 
2,119045 
3,153,183 

1864. 
1865  . 

1869. 
1870  . 
1871  . 
1872. 

.       -       2,215,150 

3,385,105 
3,458,113 

4,186,475 
5,308,046 
5,278,072 
6,505,774 
9,849,508 

1875  . 

8,948,749 

1876. 
1877. 
1878. 
1879 
1880  . 
1881  . 

1883  . 

v    .  15,272,49! 

19,835,903 
26,027,631 

27,376,509 

23,128,389 

1884. 
1885 
1886. 

1887  . 
1888. 
1889. 
1890 

20,776,041 
25,798.000 
21,478,883 
16,488,668 
21,487,435 

1892 

1893 
1894. 
I8ft5. 

31,362,890 
27,597,614 

EARLY   OPERATORS  ON  OIL  CREEK. 


V. 


A  HOLE  IN  THE  GROUND. 

THE  FIRST  WELL,  DRILLED  FOR  PETROLEUM— THE  MEN  WHO  STARTED  OIL  ON  ITS 
TRIUMPHANT  MARCH— COLONEL  DRAKE'S  OPERATIONS— SETTING  HISTORY  RIGHT 

—  HOW   TlTUSVILLE  WAS  BOOMED  AND  A   GlANT  INDUSTRY  ORIGINATED — MODEST 

BEGINNING  OF  THE  GRANDEST  ENTERPRISE  ox  EARTH — SIDE  DROPPINGS  THAT 
THROW  LIGHT  ON  AN  IMPORTANT  SUBJECT. 


I  have  tapped  the  mine." — Colonel  E.  L.  Drake. 
Come  quick,  there's  oceans  of  oil." — "  Uncle  Billy  "  Smith. 
Petroleum  has  come  to  be  king." — Professor  W.  D.  Gunning. 
It  is  our  mission  to  illuminate  all  creation."— New  York  Ledger. 
Behold,  how  great  a  matter  a  little  fire  kindleth."— St.  James  111:5. 


ATURE  certainly  spared  no  effort  to  bring 
petroleum  into  general  notice  ages  before 
James  Young  manufactured  paraffine-oil  in 
Scotland  or  Samuel  M.  Kier  fired-up  his 
miniature  refinery  at  Pittsburg.  North  and 
south,  east  and  west  the  presence  of  the 
greasy  staple  was  manifested  positively  and 
extensively.  The  hump  of  a  dromedary, 
the  kick  of  a  mule  or  the  ruby  blossom  on 
a  toper's  nose  could  not  be  more  apparent.  It 
bubbled  in  fountains,  floated  on  rivulets,  es- 
caped from  crevices,  collected  in  pools,  blazed 
on  the  plains,  gurgled  down  the  mountains, 
clogged  the  ozone  with  vapor,  smelled  and 
sputtered,  trickled  and  seeped  for  thousands  of 
years  in  vain  attempts  to  divert  attention  towards  the  source  of  this  prodigal  dis- 
play. Mankind  accepted  it  as  a  liniment  and  lubricant,  gulped  it  down,  rubbed 
it  in,  smeared  it  on  and  never  thought  of  seeking  whence  it  came  or  how  much 
of  it  might  be  procured.  Even  after  salt-wells  had  produced  the  stuff  none 
stopped  to  reflect  that  the  golden  grease  must  be  imprisoned  far  beneath 
the  earth's  surface,  only  awaiting  release  to  bless  the  dullards  callous  to  the 
strongest  hints  respecting  its  headquarters.  The  dunce  who  heard  Sydney 
Smith's  side-splitting  story  and  sat  as  solemn  as  the  sphinx,  because  he  couldn't 
see  any  point  until  the  next  day  and  then  got  it  heels  over  head,  was  less  obtuse. 
Puck  was  right  in  his  little  pleasantry  :  "What  fools  these  mortals  be  !" 

Dr.  Abraham  Gesner  obtained  oil  from  coal  in  1846  and  in  1854  patented  an 
illuminator  styled  "  Kerosene,"  which  the  North  American  Kerosene  Gaslight 
Company  of  New  York  manufactured  at  its  works  on  Long  Island.    The  excel- 
5  55 


56  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

lence  of  the  new  light— the  smoke  and  odor  were  eliminated  gradually— caused 
a  brisk  demand  that  froze  the  marrow  of  the  animal-oil  industry.  Capitalists 
invested  largely  in  Virginia,  Kentucky  and  Missouri  coal-lands,  saving  the  ex- 
pense of  transporting  the  "  raw  material "  by  erecting  oil-works  at  the  mines. 
Exactly  in  the  ratio  that  mining  coal  was  cheaper  than  catching  whales  mineral- 
oil  had  the  advantage  in  competing  for  a  market.  Realizing  this,  men  owning 
fish-oil  works  preserved  them  from  extinction  by  manufacturing  the  mineral- 
product  Young  and  Gesner  had  introduced.  Thus  Samuel  Downer's  half-mil- 
lion-dollar works  near  Boston  and  colossal  plant  at  Portland  were  utilized. 
Downer  had  expanded  ideas  and  remarked  with  characteristic  emphasis,  in 
reply  to  a  friend  who  criticised  him  for  the  risk  he  ran  in  putting  up  an  enormous 
refinery  at  Corry,  as  the  oil-production  might  exhaust :  ' '  The  Almighty  never 
does  a  picayune  business  !"  Fifty  or  sixty  of  these  works  were  turning  out  oil 
from  bituminous  shales  in  1859,  when  the  influx  of  petroleum  compelled  their 
conversion  into  refineries  to  avert  overwhelming  loss.  Maine  had  one,  Massa- 
chusetts five,  New  York  five,  Pennsylvania  eight,  Ohio  twenty-five,  Kentucky 
six,  Virginia  eight,  Missouri  one  and  one  was  starting  in  McKean  county,  near 
Kinzua  village.  The  Carbon  Oil  Company,  184  Water  street,  New  York  City, 
was  the  chief  dealer  in  the  illuminant.  The  entire  petroleum  traffic  in  1858  was 
barely  eleven-hundred  barrels,  most  of  it  obtained  from  Tarentum.  A  shipment 
of  twelve  barrels  to  New  York  in  November,  1857,  may  be  considered  the  begin- 
ning of  the  history  of  petroleum  as  an  illuminator.  How  the  baby  has  grown  ! 
The  price  of  "kerosene"  or  "carbon  oil,"  always  high,  advanced  to  two 
dollars  a  gallon !  Nowadays  people  grudge  ten  cents  a  gallon  for  oil  vastly 
clearer,  purer,  better  and  safer  !  One  good  result  of  the  high  prices  was  an 
exhaustive  scrutiny  by  the  foremost  scientific  authorities  into  all  the  varieties  of 
coal  and  bitumen,  out  of  which  comparisons  with  petroleum  developed  incident- 
ally. Belief  in  its  identity  with  coal-oil  prompted  the  investigations  which  finally 
determined  the  economic  value  of  petroleum.  Professor  B.  Silliman,  Jun.,  Pro- 
fessor of  Chemistry  in  Yale  College,  in  the  spring  of  1855  concluded  a  thorough 
analysis  of  petroleum  from  a  "spring"  on  Oil  Creek,  nearly  two  miles  south  of 
Titusville,  where  traces  of  pits  cribbed  with  rough  timber  still  remained  and  the 
sticky  fluid  had  been  skimmed  for  two  generations.  In  the  course  of  his  report 
Professor  Silliman  observed  : 

"  It  is  understood  and  represented  that  this  product  exists  in  great  abundance  on  the  property; 
that  it  can  be  gathered  wherever  a  well  is  sunk ,  over  a  great  number  of  acrt  s,  and  that  it  is  unfailing- 
in  its  yield  from  year  to  year.  The  question  naturally  arises,  Of  what  value  is  it  in  the  arts  and  for 
what  uses  can  it  be  employed  ?  *  *  *  The  Crude  Oil  was  tried  as  a  means  of  illumination.  For 
this  purpose  a  weighed  quantity  was  decomposed  by  passing  it  through  a  wrought-iron  retort 
filled  with  carbon  and  ignited  to  redness.  It  produced  nearly  pure  carburetted  hydrogen  gas,  the 
most  highly  illuminating  of  all  carbon  gases.  In  fact,  the  oil  may  be  regarded  as  chemically 
identical  with  illuminating  gas  in  a  liquid  form.  It  burned  with  an  intense  flame.  *  *  *  The 
light  from  the  rectified  Naphtha  is  pure  and  white,  without  odor,  and  the  rate  of  consumption  less 
than  half  that  of  Camphene  or  Rosin-Oil.  *  *  *  Compared  with  Gas,  the  Rock-Oilgave  more 
light  than  any  burner,  except  the  costly  Argand,  consuming  two  feet  of  gas  per  hour.  These 
photometric  experiments  have  given  the  Oil  a  much  higher  value  as  an  illuminator  than  I  had 
dared  to  hope.  *  *  *  As  this  oil  does  not  gum  or  become  acid  or  rancid  by  exposure,  it  pos- 
sesses in  that,  as  well  as  in  its  wonderful  resistance  to  extreme  cold,  important  qualities  for  a 
lubricator.  *  *  *  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  my  experiments  prove  that  nearly  the  whole  of  the  raw 
product  may  be  manufactured  without  waste,  solely  by  one  of  the  most  simple  of  all  chemical 
processes." 

Notwithstanding  these  researches,  which  he  spent  five  months  in  prosecuting, 
the  idea  of  artesian  boring  for  petroleum — naturally  suggested  by  the  oil  in  the 
salines  ofAhe  Muskingum,  Kanawha,  Cumberland  and  Allegheny — never  oe- 


A   HOLE  IN  THE   GROUND.  57 

curred  to  the  learned  Professor  of  Chemistry  in  Yale  !  If  he  had  been  the  Yale 
football,  with  Hickok  swatting  it  five-hundred  pounds  to  the  square  inch,  the 
idea  might  have  been  pummeled  into  the  man  of  crucibles  and  pigments  !  Once 
more  was  nature  frustrated  in  the  endeavor  to  "bring  out"  a  favorite  child. 
The  faithful  dog  that  attempted  to  drag  a  fat  man  by  the  seat  of  his  pants  to  the 
rescue  of  a  drowning  master,  or  Diogenes  in  his  protracted  quest  for  an  honest 
Athenian,  had  an  easier  task.  The  "spring"  which  furnished  the  material  for 
Silliman's  experiments  was  on  the  Willard  farm,  part  of  the  lands  of  Brewer, 
Watson  &  Co. — Ebenezer  Brewer  and  James  Rynd,  Pittsburg,  Jonathan  Watson, 
Rexford  Pierce  and  Elijah  Newberry,  Titusville — extensive  lumbermen  on  Oil 
Creek.  They  ran  a  sawmill  on  an  island  near  the  east  bank  of  the  creek,  at  a 
bend  in  the  stream,  a  few  rods  south  of  the  boundary-line  between  Venango  and 
Crawford  counties.  Close  to  the  mill  was  the  rusty-looking  "spring"  from 
which  the  oil  to  burn  in  rude  lamps,  smoky  and  chimneyless,  and  to  lubricate 
the  circular  saw  was  derived.  The  following  document  explains  the  first  action 
regarding  the  care  and  development  of  the  "spring  :" 

"Agreed  this  fourth  day  of  July,  A.  D.  1853,  with  J.  D.  Angier,  of  Cherrytree  Township,  in 
the  County  of  Venango,  Pa. ,  that  he  shall  repair  up  and  keep  in  order  the  ol  J  oil-spring  on  land  in 
said  Cherrytree  township,  or  dig  and  make  new  springs,  and  the  expenses  to  be  deducted  out  of 
the  proceeds  of  the  oil  and  the  balance,  if  any,  to  be  equally  divided,  the  one-half  to  J.  D.  Angier 
and  the  other  half  to  Brewer,  Watson  &  Co.,  for  the  full  term  of  five  years  from  this  date,  if 
profitable." 

All  parties  signed  this  agreement,  pursuant  to  which  Angier,  for  many  years 
a  resident  of  Titusville,  dug  trenches  centering  in  a  basin  from  which  a  pump 
connected  with  the  sawmill  raised  the  water  into  shallow  troughs  that  sloped  to 
the  ground.  Small  skimmers,  nicely  adjusted  to  skim  the  oil,  collected  three 
or  four  gallons  a  day,  but  the  experiment  did  not  pay  and  it  was  dropped.  In 
the  summer  of  1854  Dr.  F.  B.  Brewer,  son  of  the  senior  member  of  the  firm 
owning  the  mill  and  "spring,"  visited  relatives  at  Hanover,  New  Hampshire, 
carrying  with  him  a  bottle  of  the  oil  as  a  gift  to  Professor  Crosby,  of  Dartmouth 
College.  Shortly  after  George  H.  Bissell,  a  graduate  of  the  college,  practicing 
law  in  New  York  with  Jonathan  G.  Eveleth,  while  on  a  visit  to  Hanover  called 
to  see  Professor  Crosby,  who  showed  him  the  bottle  of  petroleum.  Crosby's 
son  induced  Bissell  to  pay  the  expenses  of  a  trip  to  inspect  the  "spring"  and  to 
agree,  in  case  of  a  satisfactory  report,  to  organize  a  company  with  a  capital  of  a 
quarter-million  dollars  to  purchase  lands  and  erect  such  machinery  as  might  be 
required  to  collect  all  the  oil  in  the  vicinity. 

Complications  and  misunderstandings  retarded  matters.  Everything  was 
adjusted  at  last.  Brewer,  Watson  &  Co.  conveyed  in  fee  simple  to  George  H. 
Bissell  and  Jonathan  G.  Eveleth  one-hundred-and-five  acres  of  land  in  Cherry- 
tree  township,  embracing  the  island  at  the  junction  cf  Pine  Creek  and  Oil  Creek, 
on  which  the  mill  of  the  firm  and  the  Angier  ditches  were  situated.  The  deed 
was  formally  executed  on  January  first,  1855.  Eveleth  and  Bissell  gave  their 
own  notes  for  the  purchase-money — five-thousand  dollars — less  five-hundred 
dollars  paid  in  cash.  The  consideration  mentioned  in  the  deed  was  twenty-five- 
thousand  dollars,  five  times  the  actual  sum,  in  order  not  to  appear  such  a  small 
fraction  of  the  total  capital — two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand  dollars — as  to  injure 
the  sale  of  stock.  On  December  thirtieth,  1854,  articles  of  incorporation  of 
The  Pennsylvania  Rock  Oil  Company  were  filed  in  New  York  and  Albany.  The 
stock  did  not  sell,  owing  to  the  prostration  of  the  money-market  and  the  fact 
that  the  company  had  been  organized  in  New  York,  by  the  laws  of  which  state 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


each  shareholder  in  a  joint-stock  company  was  liable  for  its  debts  to  the  amount 
of  the  par  value  of  the  stock  he  held.  New  Haven  parties  agreed  to  subscribe 
for  large  blocks  of  stock  if  the  company  were  reorganized  under  the  laws  of  Con- 
necticut. A  new  company  was  formed  with  a  nominal  capital  of  three-hundred- 
thousand  dollars,  to  take  the  name  and  property  of  the  one  to  be  dissolved  and 
levy  an  assessment  to  develop  the  island  "by  trenching"  on  a  wholesale  plan. 

Eveleth  &  Bissell  retained  a  controlling  interest  and  Ashael  Pierpont,  James 
M.  Townsend  and  William  A.  Ives  were  three  of  the  New  Haven  stockholders. 
Bissell  visited  Titusville  to  complete  the  transfer.  On  January  sixteenth  he  and 
his  partner  had  given  a  deed,  which  was  not  recorded,  to  the  trustees  of  the 
original  company.  At  Titusville  he  learned  that  lands  of  corporations  organ- 
ized outside  of  Pennsylvania  would  be  forfeited  to  the  state.  The  new  company 
was  notified  of  this  law  and  to  avoid  trouble,  on  September  twentieth,  1855, 
Eveleth  &  Bissell  executed  a  deed  to  Pierpont  and  Ives,  who  gave  a  bond  for 
the  value  of  the  property  and  leased  it  for  ninety-nine  years  to  a  company 
formed  two  days  before  under  certain  articles  of  association.  It  really  seemed 
that  something  definite  would  be  done.  The  first  oil  company  in  the  history  of 
nations  had  been  organized.  Pierpont,  an  eminent  mechanic,  was  sent  to 
examine  the  "spring,"  with  a  view  to  improve  Angier's  machinery.  Silliman's 
reports  had  a  stimulating  effect  and  the  Professor  was  president  of  the  company. 
But  the  monkey-and-parrot  time  was  renewed.  Dissensions  broke  out,  Angier 
was  fired  and  the  enterprise  looked  to  be  "as  dead  as  Julius  Caesar, "  ready  to 
bury  "  a  hundred  fathoms  deep." 

One  scorching  day  in  the  summer  of  1856  Mr.  Bissell,  standing  beneath  the 
awning  of  a  Broadway  drug-store  for  a  moment's  shade,  noticed  a  bottle  of  Kier's 
Petroleum  and  a  queer  show-bill,  or  label,  in  the  window.  It  struck  him  as 
rather  odd  that  a  four-hundred-dollar  bill — such  it  appeared — should  be  displayed 


L  /.  ^/.-:; 
1840 

O  Wonderful  O 

MESJCAL 


rvn 


of  {]\t  J\ll£rtlrcn}i  - 


- — 

a&tt/  FQXJJrt, 

the  Eart/i's  surface,  is  f 
tin  Cyittrn,  foots  M  /•/ 
int'j  n.irreh,  is  buttled  i 


Fsr  particulars,  get  a   CircuL 


2    FEET    ///, 
'!h  the  Sa/t  Water,  /hv 


40j6j 


«^«^r^,.  L«M>-J 


FAC-SIMILE    OF    LABEL    ON    KIER'S    PETROLEUM. 

in  that  manner.  A  second  glance  proved  that  it  was  an  advertisement  of  a  sub- 
stance that  concerned  him  deeply.  He  stepped  inside  and  requested  permission 
to  scan  the  label.  The  druggist  told  him  to  ' '  take  it  along."  For  an  instant  he 
gazed  at  the  derricks  and  the  figures — four-hundred  feet !  A  thought  flashed 
upon  him — bore  artesian  wells  for  oil !  Artesian  wells  !  Artesian  wells  !  rang 


.-/   HOLE  IN   THE    GROUND.  59 

in  his  ears  like  the  Trinity  chimes  down  the  street,  the  bells  of  London  telling 
"Dick"  Whittington  to  return  or  the  pibroch  of  the  Highlanders  at  Lucknow 
The  idea  that  meant  so  much  was  born  at  last.  Patient  nature  must  have  felt 
in  the  mood  to  turn  somersaults,  blow  a  tin-horn  and  dance  the  fandango.  It 
was  a  simple  thought — merely  to  bore  a  hole  in  the  rock — with  no  frills  and  fur- 
belows and  fustian,  but  pregnant  with  astounding  consequences.  It  has  added 
untold  millions  to  the  wealth  of  the  country  and  conferred  incalculable  benefits 
upon  humanity.  To-day  refined  petroleum  lights  more  dwellings  in  America, 
Europe,  Asia,  Africa  and  Australia  than  all  other  agencies  combined. 

To  put  the  idea  to  the  test  was  the  next  wrinkle.  Mr.  Eveleth  agreed  with 
Bissell's  theory.  Their  first  impulse  was  to  bore  a  well  themselves.  Reflection 
cooled  their  ardor,  as  this  course  would  involve  the  loss  of  their  practice  for  an 
uncertainty.  Mr.  Havens,  a  Wall-street  broker,  whom  they  consulted,  offered 
them  five-hundred  dollars  for  a  lease  from  the  Pennsylvania  Rock-Oil  Company. 
A  contract  with  Havens,  by  the  terms  of  which  he  was  to  pay  ' '  twelve  cents  a 
gallon  for  all  oil  raised  for  fifteen  years,"  financial  reverses  prevented  his  carry- 
ing out.  The  idea  of  artesian  boring  was  too  fascinating  to  lie  dormant.  Mr. 
Townsend,  president  of  the  company,  Silliman  having  resigned,  employed 
Edwin  L.  Drake,  to  whom  in  the  darker  days  of  its  existence  he  had  sold  two- 
hundred-dollars'  worth  of  his  own  stock,  to  visit  the  property  and  report  his 
impressions.  Mrs.  Brewer  and  Mrs.  Rynd  had  not  joined  in  the  power-of-attor- 
ney  by  which  the  agent  conveyed  the  Brewer- Watson  lands  to  the  company, 
hence  they  would  be  entitled  to  dower  in  case  the  husbands  died.  Drake  was 
instructed  to  return  by  way  of  Pittsburg  and  procure  their  signatures.  Illness 
had  forced  him  to  quit  work — he  was  conductor  on  the  New  York  &  New  Haven 
Railroad — for  some  months  and  the  opportunity  for  change  of  air  and  scene  was 
embraced  gladly.  Shrewd,  far-seeing  Townsend,  who  still  lives  in  New  Haven 
and  has  been  credited  with  "the  discovery"  of  petroleum,  addressed  legal  docu- 
ments and  letters  to  "  Colonel"  Drake,  no  doubt  supposing  this  would  enhance 
the  importance  of  his  representative  in  the  eyes  of  the  Oil-Creek  backwoodsmen. 
The  military  title  stuck  to  the  diffident  civilian  whose  name  is  interwoven  with 
the  great  events  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

Stopping  on  his  way  from  New  Haven  to 
view  the  salt-wells  at  Syracuse,  about  the 
middle  of  December,  1857,  Colonel  Drake 
was  trundled  into  Titusville — named  from 
Jonathan  Titus—  on  the  mail-wagon  from 
Erie.  The  villagers  received  him  cordially. 
He  lodged  at  the  American  Hotel,  the  home- 
like inn  ' '  Billy' '  Robinson,  the  first  boniface, 
and  Major  Mills,  king  of  landlords,  rendered 
famous  by  their  bountiful  hospitality.  The 
old  caravansary  was  torn  down  in  1880  to 
furnish  a  site  for  the  Oil  Exchange.  Drake 
stayed  a  few  days  to  transact  legal  business, 
to  examine  the  lands  and  the  indications  of 
oil  and  to  become  familiar  with  the  general 

.  ....  JONATHAN    TITUS. 

details.     Proceeding  to  Pittsburg,  he  visited 

the  salt-wells  atTarentum,  the  picture  of  which  on  Kier's  label  suggested  boring 
for  oil,  and  hastened  back  to  Connecticut  to  conclude  a  scheme  of  operating  the 
property.  On  December  thirtieth  the  three  New  Haven  directors  executed  a 


6o 


SKETCHES  AY  CRUDE-OIL. 


lease  to  Edwin  E.  Bowditch  and  Edwin  L.  Drake,  who  were  to  pay  the  Pennsyl- 
vania Rock-Oil  Company  "five-and-a-half  cents  a  gallon  for  the  oil  raised  for 
fifteen  years."  Eight  days  later,  at  the  annual  meeting  of  the  directors,  the 
lease  was  ratified,  George  H.  Bissell  and  Jonathan  Watson,  representing  two- 
thirds  of  the  stock,  protesting.  Thereupon  the  consideration  was  placed  at 
' '  one-eighth  of  all  oil,  salt  or  paint  produced. ' '  The  lease  was  sent  to  Franklin 
and  recorded  in  Deed  Book  P,  page  357.  A  supplemental  lease,  extending  the 
time  to  forty-five  years  on  the  conditions  of  the  grant  to  Havens,  was  recorded, 
and  on  March  twenty-third,  1858,  the  Seneca  Oil  Company  was  organized,  with 
Colonel  Drake  as  president  and  owner  of  one-fortieth  of  the  ' '  stock. ' '  No  stock 
was  issued,  for  the  company  was  in  reality  a  partnership  working  under  the  laws 
governing  j  oint-stock  associations. 

Provided  with  a  fund  of  one-thousand  dollars  as  a  starter,  Drake  was  engaged 
at  one-thousand  dollars  a  year  to  begin  operations.  Early  in  May,  1858,  he  and 
his  family  arrived  in  Titusvilleand  were  quartered  at  the  American  Hotel,  which 


THli    FIRST    DRAKE    WELL,    ITS    DRILLERS    AND     ITS    COMPLETE    RIG. 

boarded  the  Colonel,  Mrs.  Drake,  two  children  and  a  horse  for  six-dollars-and- 
a-half  per  week  !  Money  was  scarce,  provisions  were  cheap  and  the  quiet  village 
put  on  no  extravagant  airs.  Not  a  pick  or  shovel  was  to  be  had  in  any  store 
short  of  Meadville,  whither  Drake  was  obliged  to  send  for  these  useful  tools  ! 
Behold,  then,  "the  man  who  was  to  revolutionize  the  light  of  the  world,"  his 
mind  full  of  a  grand  purpose  and  his  pockets  full  of  cash,  snugly  ensconced  in 
the  comfortable  hostelry.  Surely  the  curtain  would  soon  rise  and  the  drama  of 
"A  Petroleum  Hunt"  proceed  without  further  vexatious  delays. 

Drake's  first  step  was  to  repair  and  start  up  Angier's  system  of  trenches, 


A  HOLE  IN  THE  GROUND.  61 

troughs  and  skimmers.  By  the  end  of  June  he  had  dug  a  shallow  well  on  the 
island  and  was  saving  ten  gallons  of  oil  a  day.  He  found  it  difficult  to  get  a  prac- 
tical "borer"  to  sink  an  artesian  well.  In  August  he  shipped  two  barrels  of  oil 
to  New  Haven  and  bargained  for  a  steam-engine  to  furnish  power  for  drilling. 
The  engine  was  not  furnished  as  agreed,  the  "borer"  Dr.  Brewer  hired  at  Pitts- 
burg  had  another  contract  and  operations  were  suspended  for  the  winter.  In 
February,  1859,  Drake  went  to  Tarentum  and  engaged  a  driller  to  come  in 
March.  The  driller  failed  to  materialize  and  Drake  drove  to  Tarentum  in  a 
sleigh  to  lasso  another.  F.  N.  Humes,  who  was  cleaning  out  salt-wells  for 
Peterson,  informed  him  that  the  tools  were  made  by  William  A.  Smith,  whom 
he  might  be  able  to  secure  for  the  job.  Smith  accepted  the  offer  to  manufacture 
tools  and  bore  the  well.  Kim  Hibbard,  favorably  known  in  Franklin,  was  dis- 
patched with  his  team,  when  the  tools  were  completed,  for  Smith,  his  two  sons 
and  the  outfit.  On  May  twentieth  the  men  and  tools  were  at  the  spot  selected 
for  the  hole.  A  "pump-house"  had  been  framed  and  a  derrick  built.  A  room 
for  "boarding  the  hands"  almost  joined  the  rig  and  the  sawmill.  The  accom- 
panying illustration  shows  the  well  as  it  was  at  first,  with  the  original  derrick 
enclosed  to  the  top,  the  ''grasshopper  walking-beam,"  the  "boarding-house" 
and  part  of  the  mill-shed.  "  Uncle  Billy"  Smith  is  seated  on  a  wheelbarrow  in 
the  foreground.  His  sons,  James  and  William,  are  standing  on  either  side  of 
the  "  pump-house"  entrance.  Back  of  James  his  two  young  sisters  are  sitting 
on  a  board.  Elbridge  Lock  stands  to  the  right  of  the  Smiths.  "Uncle  Billy's" 
brother  is  leaning  on  a  plank  at  the  corner  of  the  derrick  and  his  wife  may  be 
discerned  in  the  doorway  of  the  "  boarding-house. :)  This  interesting  and  his- 
toric picture  has  never  been  printed  until  now.  The  one  with  which  the  world 
is  acquainted  depicts  the  second  rig,  with  Peter  Wilson,  a  Titusville  druggist, 
facing  Drake.  In  like  manner,  the  portrait  of  Colonel  Drake  in  this  volume  is 
from  the  first  photograph  for  which  he  ever  sat.  The  well  and  the  portrait  are 
the  work  of  John  A.  Mather,  the  veteran  artist  and  Drake's  bosom-friend,  who 
ought  to  receive  a  pension  and  no  end  of  gratitude  for  preserving  ' '  counterfeit 
presentments"  of  a  host  of  petroleum-scenes  and  personages  that  have  passed 
from  mortal  sight. 

Delays  and  tribulations  had  not  retreated  from  the  field.  In  artesian  boring 
it  is  necessary  to  drill  in  rock.  Mrs.  Glasse's  old-time  cook-book  gained  celeb- 
rity by  starting  a  recipe  for  rabbit-pie  :  "First  catch  your  hare."  The  principle 
applies  to  artesian  drilling:  "  P^irst  catch  your  rock."  The  ordinary  rule  was 
to  dig  a  pit  or  well-hole  to  the  rock  and  crib  it  with  timber.  The  Smiths  dug  a 
few  feet,  but  the  hole  filled  with  water  and  caved-in  persistently.  It  was  a  fight- 
to-a-finish  between  three  men  and  what  Stow  of  Girard — he  was  Barnum's  hot- 
stuff  advance  agent — wittily  termed  ' '  the  cussedness  of  inanimate  things. ' '  The 
latter  won  and  a  council  of  war  was  summoned,  at  which  Drake  recommended 
driving  an  iron-tube  through  the  clay  and  quicksand  to  the  rock.  This  was 
effectual.  Colonel  Drake  should  have  patented  the  process,  which  was  his 
exclusive  device  and  decidedly  valuable.  The  pipe  was  driven  thirty-six  feet  to 
hard-pan  and  the  drill  started  on  August  fourteenth.  The  workmen  averaged 
three  feet  a  day,  resting  at  night  and  on  Sundays.  Indications  of  oil  were  met 
as  the  tools  pierced  the  rock.  Everybody  figured  that  the  well  would  be  down 
to  the  Tarentum  level  in  time  to  celebrate  Christmas.  The  company,  tired  of 
repeated  postponements,  did  not  deluge  Drake  with  money.  Losing  specula- 
tions and  sickness  had  drained  his  own  meagre  savings.  R.  D.  Fletcher,  the 
well-known  Titusville  merchant,  and  Peter  Wilson  endorsed  his  paper  for  six- 


62  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

hundred  dollars  to  tide  over  a  crisis.  The  tools  pursued  the  downward  road 
with  the  eagerness  of  a  sinner  headed  for  perdition,  while  expectation  stood  on 
tiptoe  to  watch  the  progress  of  events. 

On  Saturday  afternoon,  August  twenty-eighth,  1859,  tne  well  had  reached 
the  depth  of  sixty-nine  feet,  in  a  coarse  sand.  Smith  and  his  sons  concluded  to 
"lay  off"  until  Monday  morning.  As  they  were  about  to  quit  the  drill  dropped 
six  inches  into  a  crevice  such  as  was  common  in  salt-wells.  Nothing  was  thought 
of  this  circumstance,  the  tools  were  drawn  out  and  all  hands  adjourned  to  Titus- 
ville.  Mr.  Smith  went  to  the  well  on  Sunday  afternoon  to  see  if  it  had  moved 
away  or  been  purloined  during  the  night.  Peering  into  the  hole  he  saw  fluid 
within  eight  or  ten  feet.  A  piece  of  tin-spouting  was  lying  outside.  He  plugged 
one  end  of  the  spout,  let  it  down  by  a  string  and  pulled  it  up.  Muddy  water? 
No  !  It  was  filled  with  PETROLEUM  ! 

That  was  the  proudest  hour  in  "Uncle  Billy"  Smith's  forty-seven  years' 
pilgrimage.  Not  daring  to  leave  the  spot,  he  ran  the  spout  again  and  again, 
each  time  bringing  it  to  the  surface  full  of  oil.  A  straggler  out  for  a  stroll 
approached,  heard  the  story,  sniffed  the  oil  and  bore  the  tidings  to  the  village. 
Darkness  was  setting  in,  but  the  Smith  boys  sprinted  to  the  scene.  When 
Colonel  Drake  came  down,  bright  and  early  next  morning,  they  and  their  father 
were  guarding  three  barrels  of  the  precious  liquid.  The  pumping  apparatus  was 
adjusted  and  by  noon  the  well  commenced  producing  at  the  rate  of  twenty 
barrels  a  day !  The  problem  of  the  ages  was  solved,  the  agony  ended  and  petro- 
leum fairly  launched  on  its  astonishing  career. 

The  news  flew  like  a  Dakota  cyclone.  Villagers  and  country-folk  flocked 
to  the  wonderful  well.  Smith  wrote  to  Peterson,  his  former  employer :  "Come 
quick,  there's  oceans  of  oil !"  Jonathan  Watson  jumped  on  a  horse  and  galloped 
down  the  creek  to  lease  the  McClintock  farm,  where  Nathanael  Gary  dipped  oil 
and  a  timbered  crib  had  been  constructed.  Henry  Potter,  still  a  citizen  of  Titus- 
ville,  tied  up  the  lands  for  miles  along  the  stream,  hoping  to  interest  New  York 
capital.  William  Barnsdall  secured  the  farm  north  of  the  Willard.  George  H. 
Bissell,  who  had  arranged  to  be  posted  by  telegraph,  bought  all  the  Pennsylvania 
Rock-Oil  stock  he  could  find  and  in  four  days  was  at  the  well.  He  leased  farm 
after  farm  on  Oil  Creek  and  the  Allegheny  river,  regardless  of  surface  indica- 
tions or  the  admonitions  of  meddling  wiseacres. 

The  rush  for  property  resembled  the  wild  scramble  of  the  children  when  the 
Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin  blew  his  fatal  reed.  Titusville  was  in  a  whirlpool  of 
excitement.  Buildings  arose  as  if  by  magic,  the  hamlet  became  a  borough  and 
the  borough  a  city  of  fifteen-thousand  inhabitants.  Maxwell  Titus  sold  lots  at 
two-hundred  dollars,  people  acquired  homes  that  doubled  in  value  and  specula- 
tion held  undisputed  sway.  Jonathan  Titus,  from  whom  it  was  named,  lived  to 
witness  the  farm  he  cleared  transformed  into  "The  Queen  City,"  noted  for  its 
tasteful  residences,  excellent  schools,  manufactories,  refineries  and  active  popu- 
lation. One  of  his  neighbors  in  the  bush  was  Samuel  Kerr,  whose  son  Michael 
went  to  Congress  and  served  as  Speaker  of  the  House.  Many  enterprising  men 
settled  in  Titusville  for  the  sake  of  their  families.  They  paved  the  streets, 
planted  shade-trees,  fostered  local  industries,  promoted  culture  and  believed  in 
public  improvements.  When  Christine  Nillson  enraptured  sixteen-hundred 
well-dressed,  appreciative  listeners  in  the  Parshall  Opera-House,  the  peerless 
songstress  could  not  refrain  from  saying  that  she  never  saw  an  audience  so  keen 
to  note  the  finer  points  of  her  performance  and  so  discriminating  in  its  applause. 


A   HOLE  IN  THE   GROUND.  63 

"  Praise  from  Sir  Hubert  is  praise  indeed  "  and  the  compliment  of  the  Swedish 
Nightingale  compressed  a  whole  encyclopedia  into  a  sentence.  Titusville  has 
had  its  ups  and  downs,  but  there  is  no  more  desirable  abiding  place  in  the 
Keystone  State. 

Matches  are  supposed  to  be  made  in  Heaven  and  the  inspiration  that  led  to 
the  choice  of  such  a  site  for  the  future  city  must  have  been  derived  from  the 
same  source.  Healthfulness  and  beauty  of  location  attest  the  wisdom  of  the 
selection.  Folks  don't  have  to  climb  precipitous  hills  or  risk  life  and  limb 


MAIN    STREET,   TITUSVILLE,    IN     l86l. 

crossing  railway-tracks  whenever  they  wish  to  exercise  their  fast  nags.  Driving 
is  a  favorite  pastime  in  fine  weather,  the  leading  thoroughfares  often  reminding 
strangers  of  Central  Park  on  a  coaching-day.  Main,  Walnut  and  Perry  streets 
are  lined  with  trees  and  residences  worthy  of  Philadelphia  or  Baltimore.  Com- 
fortable homes  are  the  crowning  glory  of  a  community  and  in  this  respect  Titus- 
ville docs  not  require  to  take  a  back-seat.  Near  the  lower  end  of  Main  street  is 
Ex-Mayor  Cald well's  elegant  mansion,  built  by  Jonathan  Watson  in  the  days  of 
his  prosperity.  Farther  up  are  John  Fertig's,  the  late  Marcus  Brownson's,  Mrs. 
David  Emery's  and  Mrs.  A.  N.  Perrin's.  Franklin  S.  Tarbell,  a  former  resident 
of  Rouseville,  occupies  an  attractive  house.  Joseph  Seep,  who  has  not  changed 
an  iota  since  the  halcyon  period  cf  Parker  and  Foxburg,  shows  his  faith  in  the 
town  by  building  a  home  that  would  adorn  Cleveland's  aristocratic  Euclid 
Avenue.  The  host  is  the  cordial  Seep  of  yore,  quick  to  make  a  point  and  not  a 
bit  backward  in  helping  a  friend.  David  McKelvy,  whom  everybody  knew  in 
the  lower  oil-fields,  remodeled  the  Chase  homestead,  a  symphony  in  red  brick. 
Close  by  is  W.  T.  Scheide's  natty  dwelling,  finished  in  a  style  befitting  the  ex- 
superintendent  of  the  National-Transit  Pipe-Lines.  Byron  D.  Benson — he  died 
in  1889— nine  times  elected  president  of  the  Tidewater  Pipe-Line  Company, 
lived  on  the  corner  of  Oak  and  Perry  streets.  Opposite  is  John  L.  McKinney's 
luxurious  residence,  a  credit  to  the  liberal  owner  and  the  city.  J.  C.  McKin- 
ney's is  "one  of  the  finest."  James  Parshall,  W.  B.  Sterrett,  O.  D.  Harrington, 


64  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

J.  P.  Thomas,  W.  W.  Thompson,  Charles  Archbold  and  hundreds  more  erected 
dwellings  that  belong  to  the  palatial  tribe.  Dr.  Roberts — he's  in  the  cemetery 
— had  a  spacious  place  on  Washington  street,  with  the  costliest  stable  in  seven- 
teen counties.  E.  O.  Emerson's  house  and  grounds  are  the  admiration  of 
visitors.  The  grand  fountain,  velvet  lawns,  smooth  walks,  tropical  plants, 
profusion  of  flowers,  mammoth  conservatory  and  Marechal-Niel  rose-bushes 
bewilder  the  novice  whose  knowledge  of  floral  affairs  stops  at  button-hole 
bouquets.  George  K.  Anderson — dead,  too — constructed  this  delightful  retreat. 
Col.  J.  J.  Carter,  whose  record  as  a  military  officer,  merchant,  railroad-president 
MaM  and  oil-operator  will  stand  inspection,  has  an 

ideal  home,  purchased  from  John  D.  Archbold 
and  refitted  throughout.  It  was  built  and  fur- 
nished extravagantly  by  Daniel  Cady,  once  a 
leading  spirit  in  the  business  and  social  life  of 
Titusville.  He  was  a  man  of  imposing  pres- 
ence and  indomitable  pluck,  the  confidant  of  Jay 
Gould  and  "Jim"  Fisk,  dashing,  speculative  and 
popular.  For  years  whatever  he  touched  seemed 
to  turn  into  gold  and  he  computed  his  dollars  by 
hundreds  of  thousands.  Days  of  adversity  over- 
took him,  the  splendid  home  was  sacrificed  and 
he  died  poor.  To  men  of  the  stamp  of  Watson, 
Anderson,  Abbott,  Emery,  Fertig  and  Cady 
Titusville  owes  its  real  start  in  the  direction  of 
greatness.  Much  of  the  froth  and  fume  of  former 
days  is  missing,  but  the  baser  elements  have  been 
eliminated,  trade  is  on  a  solid  basis  and  important  manufactures  have  been  estab- 
lished. There  are  big  refineries,  Holly  water-works,  a  race-track,  ball-grounds, 
top-notch  hotels,  live  newspapers,  inviting  churches  and  a  lovely  cemetery  in 
which  to  plant  good  citizens  when  they  pass  in  their  checks.  Pilgrims  who 
expect  to  find  Titusville  dead  or  dying  will  be  as  badly  fooled  as  the  lover  whose 
girl  eloped  with  the  other  fellow. 

Unluckily  for  himself,  Colonel  Drake  took  a  narrow  view  of  affairs.  Com- 
placently assuming  that  he  had  "tapped  the  mine" — to  quote  his  own  phrase — 
and  that  paying  territory  would  not  be  found  outside  the  company's  lease,  he 
pumped  the  well  serenely,  told  funny  stories  and  secured  not  one  foot  of  ground  ! 
Had  he  possessed  a  particle  of  the  prophetic  instinct,  had  he  grasped  the  magni- 
tude of  the  issues  at  stake,  had  he  appreciated  the  importance  of  petroleum  as  a 
commercial  product,  had  he  been  able  to  "see  an  inch  beyond  his  nose,"  he 
would  have  gone  forth  that  August  morning  and  become  "  Master  of  the  Oil 
Country !"  "The  world  was  all  before  him  where  to  choose,"  he  was  literally 
"monarch  of  all  he  surveyed,"  but  he  didn't  move  a  peg  !  Money  was  not 
needed,  the  promise  of  one-eighth  or  one-quarter  royalty  satisfying  the  easy- 
going farmers,  consequently  he  might  have  gathered  in  any  quantity  of  land. 
Friends  urged  him  to  "get  into  the  game  ;"  he  rejected  their  counsel  and  never 
realized  his  mistake  until  other  wells  sent  prices  skyward  and  it  was  everlastingly 
too  late  for  his  short  pole  to  knock  the  persimmons.  Yet  this  is  the  man  whom 
numerous  writers  have  proclaimed  "the  discoverer  of  petroleum!"  Times 
without  number  it  has  been  said  and  written  and  printed  that  he  was  "the  first 
man  to  advise  boring  for  oil,"  that  "his  was  the  first  mind  to  conceive  the  idea 
of  penetrating  the  rock  in  search  of  a  larger  deposit  of  oil  than  was  dreamed  of  by 


A   HOLE  IN  THE   GROUND.  65 

any  one,"  that  "he  alone  unlocked  one  of  nature's  vast  storehouses"  and  "had 
visions  of  a  revolution  in  light  and  lubrication."  Considering  what  Kier,  Peter- 
son, Bissell  and  Watson  had  done  years  before  Drake  ever  saw— perhaps  ever 
heard  of— a  drop  of  petroleum,  the  absurdity  of  these  claims  is  "so  plain  that 
he  who  runs  may  read. ' '  Couple  with  this  his  incredible  failure  to  secure  lands 
after  the  well  was  drilled  —  wholly  inexcusable  if  he  supposed  oil-operations 
would  ever  be  important — and  the  man  who  thinks  Colonel  Drake  was  "the  first 
man  with  a  clear  conception  of  the  future  of  petroleum"  could  swallow  the  fish 
that  swallowed  Jonah  ! 

Above  all  else  history  should  be  truthful  and  "hew  to  the  line,  let  chips  fall 
where  they  may."  Mindful  that  "the  agent  is  but  the  instrument  of  the  princi- 
pal, ' '  why  should  Colonel  Drake  wear  the  laurels  in  this  instance  ?  Paid  a  salary 
to  carry  out  BisselPs  plan  of  boring  an  artesian  well,  he  spent  sixteen  months  get- 
ting the  hole  down  seventy  feet.  For  a  man  who  "had  visions"  and  "a  clear 
conception' '  his  movements  were  inexplicably  slow.  He  encountered  obstacles, 
but  salt-wells  had  been  drilled  hundreds  of  feet  without  either  a  steam-engine 
or  professional  "borer."  The  credit  of  suggesting  the  driving-pipe  to  overcome 
the  quicksand  is  justly  his  due.  Quite  as  justly  the  credit  of  suggesting  the 
boring  of  the  well  belongs  to  George  H.  Bissell.  The  company  hired  Drake, 
Drake  hired  Smith,  Smith  did  the  work.  Back  of  the  man  who  possessed  the 
skill  to  fashion  the  tools  and  sink  the  hole,  back  of  the  man  who  acted  for  the 
company  and  disbursed  its  money,  back  of  the  company  itself  is  the  originator 
of  the  idea  these  were  the  means  employed  to  put  into  effect.  Was  George 
Stephenson,  or  the  foreman  of  the  shop  where  the  "Rocket"  was  built,  the 
inventor  of  the  locomotive  ?  Was  Columbus,  or  the  man  whose  name  it  bears, 
the  discoverer  of  America  ?  In  a  conversation  on  the  subject  Mr.  Bissell 
remarked  :  "Let  Colonel  Drake  enjoy  the  pleasure  of  giving  the  well  his  name ; 
history  will  set  us  all  right."  So  it  will  and  this  is  a  step  in  that  direction.  If 
the  long-talked-of  monument  to  commemorate  the  advent  of  the  petroleum-era 
ever  be  erected,  it  should  bear  in  boldest  capitals  the  names  of  Samuel  M.  Kier 
and  George  H.  Bissell. 

Edwin  L.  Drake,  who  is  linked  inseparably  with  the  first  oil-well  in  Penn- 
sylvania, was  born  on  March  eleventh,  1819,  at  Greenville,  Greene  county,  New 
York.  His  father,  a  farmer,  moved  to  Vermont  in  1825.  At  eighteen  Edwin 
left  home  to  begin  the  struggle  with  the  world.  He  was  night  clerk  of  a  boat 
running  between  Buffalo  and  Detroit,  worked  one  year  on  a  farm  in  the  Wolver- 
ine state,  clerked  two  years  in  a  Michigan  hotel,  returned  east  and  clerked  in  a 
dry-goods  store  at  New  Haven,  clerked  and  married  in  New  York,  removed  to 
Massachusetts,  was  express-agent  on  the  Boston  &  Albany  railroad  and  resigned 
in  1849  to  become  conductor  on  the  New  York  &  New  Haven.  His  younger 
brother  died  in  the  west  and  his  wife  at  New  Haven,  in  1854,  leaving  one  child. 
While  boarding  at  a  hotel  in  New  Haven  he  met  James  M.  Townsend,  who  per- 
suaded him  to  draw  his  savings  of  two-hundred  dollars  from  the  bank  and  buy 
stock  of  the  Pennsylvania  Rock-Oil  Company,  his  first  connection  with  the  busi- 
ness that  was  to  make  him  famous.  Early  in  1857  he  married  Miss  Laura  Dow, 
sickness  in  the  summer  compelled  him  to  cease  punching  tickets  and  his  memo- 
rable visit  to  Titusville  followed  in  December.  In  1860  he  was  elected  justice- 
of-the-peace,  an  office  worth  twenty-five-hundred  dollars  that  year,  because  of 
the  enormous  number  of  property-transfers  to  prepare  and  acknowledge.  Buy- 
ing oil  on  commission  for  ShefiTm  Brothers,  New  York,  swelled  his  income  to 
five-thousand  dollars  for  a  year  or  two.  He  also  bought  twenty-five  acres  of 


66  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

land  from  Jonathan  Watson,  east  of  Martin  street  and  through  the  center  of 
which  Drake  street  now  runs,  for  two-thousand  dollars.  Unable  to  meet  the 
mortgage  given  for  part  of  the  payment,  he  sold  the  block  in  1863  to  Dr.  A.  D. 
Atkinson  for  twelve-thousand  dollars.  Forty  times  this  sum  would  not  have 
bought  it  in  1867  !  With  the  profits  of  this  transaction  and  his  savings  for  five 
years,  in  all  about  sixteen-thousand  dollars,  in  the  summer  of  1863  Colonel 
Drake  left  the  oil-regions  forever. 

Entering  into  partnership  with  a  Wall-street  broker,  he  wrecked  his  small 
fortune  speculating  in  oil-stocks,  his  health  broke  down  and  he  removed  to  Ver- 
mont. Physicians  ordered  him  to  the  seaside  as  the  only  remedy  for  his  disease, 
neuralgic  affection  of  the  spine,  which  threatened  paralysis  of  the  limbs  and 
caused  intense  suffering.  Near  Long  Branch,  in  a  cottage  offered  by  a  friend, 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Drake  drank  the  bitter  cup  to  the  dregs.  Their  funds  were  ex- 
hausted, the  patient  needed  constant  attention  and  helpless  children  cried  for 
bread.  The  devoted  wife  and  mother  attempted  to  earn  a  pittance  with  her 
needle,  but  could  not  keep  the  wolf  of  hunger  from  the  door.  Medicine  for  the 
sick  man  was  out  of  the  question.  All  this  time  men  in  the  region  the  Drake 
well  had  opened  to  the  world  were  piling  up  millions  of  dollars  !  One  day  in 
1869,  with  eighty  cents  to  pay  his  fare,  Colonel  Drake  struggled  into  New  York 
to  seek  a  place  for  his  twelve-year-old  boy.  The  errand  was  fruitless.  The 
distressed  father  was  walking  painfully  on  the  street  to  the  railway-station,  to 
board  the  train  for  home,  when  he  met  "  Zeb"  Martin  of  Titusville,afterwards 
proprietor  of  the  Hotel  Brunswick.  Mr.  Martin  noted  his  forlorn  condition, 
inquired  as  to  his  circumstances,  learned  the  sad  story  of  actual  privation,  pro- 
cured dinner,  gave  the  poor  fellow  twenty  dollars  and  cheered  him  with  the 
assurance  that  he  would  raise  a  fund  for  his  relief.  The  promise  was  redeemed. 

At  a  meeting  in  Titusville  the  case  was  stated  and  forty-two  hundred  dollars 
were  subscribed.  The  money  was  forwarded  to  Mrs.  Drake,  who  husbanded  it 
carefully.  The  terrible  recital  aroused  such  a  feeling  that  the  Legislature,  in 
1873,  granted  Colonel  Drake  an  annuity  of  fifteen-hundred  dollars  during  his  life 
and  his  heroic  wife's.  California  had  set  a  good  example  by  giving  Colonel 
Sutter,  the  discoverer  of  gold  in  the  mill-race,  thirty-five-hundred  dollars  a  year. 
The  late  Thaddeus  Stevens,  "the  Great  Commoner,"  hearing  that  Drake  was 
actually  in  want,  prepared  a  bill,  found  among  his  papers  after  his  death,  intend- 
ing to  present  it  before  Congress  for  an  appropriation  of  two-hundred-and-fifty- 
thousand  dollars  for  Colonel  Drake.  In  1870  the  family  removed  to  Bethlehem, 
Pennsylvania.  Years  of  suffering,  borne  with  sublime  resignation,  closed  on 
the  evening  of  November  ninth,  1881,  with  the  release  of  Edwin  L.  Drake  from 
this  vale  of  tears.  A  faithful  wife  and  four  children  survived  the  petroleum- 
pioneer.  They  lived  at  Bethlehem  until  the  spring  of  1895  and  then  moved  to 
New  England.  Colonel  Drake  was  a  man  of  pronounced  individuality,  affable, 
genial  and  kindly.  He  had  few  superiors  as  a  story-teller,  neither  caroused  nor 
swore,  and  was  of  unblemished  character.  He  wore  a  full  beard,  dressed  well, 
liked  a  good  horse,  looked  every  man  straight  in  the  face  and  his  dark  eyes 
sparkled  when  he  talked.  Gladly  he  laid  down  the  heavy  burden  of  a  check- 
ered life,  with  its  afflictions  and  vicissitudes,  for  the  peaceful  rest  of  a  humble 
grave. 

"  Nothing  in  his  life 
Became  him  like  the  leaving  it ;  he  died 
As  one  who  had  been  studied  in  his  death, 
To  throw  away  the  dearest  thing  he  owed, 
As  'twere  a  careless  trifle." 


A  HOLE  IN  THE   GROUND.  67 

George  H.  Bissell,  honorably  identified  with  the  petroleum-development 
from  its  inception,  was  a  New  Hampshire  boy.  Thrown  upon  his  own  resources 
at  twelve,  by  the  death  of  his  father,  he  gained  education  and  fortune  unaided. 
At  school  and  college  he  supported  himself  by  teaching  and  writing  for  maga- 
zines. Graduating  from  Dartmouth  College  in  1845,  he  was  professor  of  Greek 
and  Latin  in  Norwich  University  a  short  time,  went  to  Washington  and  Cuba, 
did  editorial  work  for  the  New  Orleans  Delta  and  was  chosen  superintendent  of 
the  public  schools.  Impaired  health  forced  him  to  return  north  in  1853,  when 
his  connection  with  petroleum  began.  From  1859  to  1863  he  resided  at  Franklin, 
Venango  county,  to  be  near  his  oil-interests.  He  operated  largely  on  Oil  Creek, 
on  the  Allegheny  river  and  at  Franklin,  where  he  erected  a  barrel-factory.  He 
removed  to  New  York  in  1863,  established  the  Bissell  Bank  at  Petroleum  Centre 
in  1866,  developed  oil-lands  in  Peru  and  was  prominent  in  financial  circles.  His 
wife  died  in  1867  and  long  since  he  followed  her  to  the  tomb.  Mr.  Bissell  was 
a  brilliant,  scholarly  man,  positive  in  his  convictions  and  sure  to  make  his  influ- 
ence felt  in  any  community.  His  son  and  daughter  reside  in  New  York. 

William  A.  Smith,  born  in  Butler  county  in  1812,  at  the  age  of  twelve  was 
apprenticed  at  Freeport  to  learn  blacksmithing.  In  1827  he  went  to  Pittsburg 
and  in  1842  opened  a  blacksmith-shop  at  Salina,  below  Tarentum.  Samuel  M. 
Kier  employed  him  to  drill  salt-wells  and  manufacture  drilling-tools.  After  fin- 
ishing the  Drake  well,  he  drilled  in  various  sections  of  the  oil-regions,  retiring 
to  his  farm  in  Butler  a  few  years  prior  to  his  death,  on  October  twenty-third, 
1890.  "Uncle  Billy, "  as  the  boys  affectionately  called  him,  was  no  small  factor 
in  giving  to  mankind  the  illuminator  that  enlightens  every  quarter  of  the  globe. 
The  farm  he  owned  in  1859  and  on  which  he  died  proved  to  be  good  oil-ter- 
ritory. 

Dr.  Francis  B.  Brewer  was  born  in  New  Hampshire,  studied  medicine  in 
Philadelphia  and  practiced  in  Vermont.  His  father  in  1840  purchased  several 
thousand  acres  of  land  on  Oil  Creek  for  lumbering,  and  the  firm  of  Brewer, 
Watson  &  Co.  was  promptly  organized.  Oil  from  the  "spring"  on  the  island  at 
the  mouth  of  Pine  Creek  was  sent  to  the  young  physician  in  1848  and  used  in  his 
practice.  He  visited  the  locality  in  1850  and  was  admitted  to  the  firm.  Upon 
the  completion  of  the  Drake  well  he  devoted  his  time  to  the  extensive  oil-ope- 
rations of  the  partnership  for  four  years.  In  1864  Brewer,  Watson  &  Co.  sold 
the  bulk  of  their  oil-territory  and  the  doctor,  who  had  settled  at  Westfield, 
Chautauqua  county,  N.  Y.,  instituted  the  First  National  Bank,  of  which  he  was 
chosen  president.  A  man  of  solid  worth  and  solid  wealth,  he  has  served  as  a 
Member  of  Assembly  and  is  deservedly  respected  for  his  integrity  and  benevo- 
lence. 

Jonathan  Watson,  whose  connection  with  petroleum  goes  back  to  the  begin- 
ning of  developments,  arrived  at  Titusville  in  1845  to  manage  the  lumbering  and 
mercantile  business  of  his  firm.  The  hamlet  contained  ten  families  and  three 
stores.  Deer  and  wild-turkeys  abounded  in  the  woods.  John  Robinson  was 
postmaster  and  Rev.  George  O.  Hampson  the  only  minister.  Mr.  Watson's 
views  of  petroleum  were  of  the  broadest  and  his  transactions  the  boldest.  He 
hastened  to  secure  lands  when  oil  appeared  in  the  Drake  well.  At  eight  o'clock 
on  that  historic  Monday  morning  he  stood  at  Hamilton  McClintock's  door, 
resolved  to  buy  or  lease  his  three-hundred-acre  farm.  A  lease  was  taken  and 
others  along  the  stream  followed  during  the  day.  Brewer,  Watson  &  Co.  oper- 
ated on  a  wholesale  scale  until  1864,  after  which  Watson  continued  alone. 
Riches  poured  upon  him.  He  erected  the  finest  residence  in  Titusville,  lavished 


68  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

money  on  the  grounds  and  stocked  a  fifty-thousand  dollar  conservatory  with 
choicest  plants  and  flowers.  A  million  dollars  in  gold  he  is  credited  with  "put- 
ting by  for  a  rainy  day."  He  went  miles  ahead,  bought  huge  blocks  of  land 
and  drilled  scores  of  test-wells.  In  this  way  he  barely  missed  opening  the  Brad- 
ford field  and  the  Bullion  district  years  before  these  productive  sections  were 
brought  into  line.  His  well  on  the  Dalzell  farm,  Petroleum  Centre,  in  1869, 
renewed  interest  in  that  quarter  long  after  it  was  supposed  to  be  sucked  dry. 
An  Oil  City  clairvoyant  indicated  the  spot  to  sink  the  hole,  promising  a  three- 
hundred-barrel  .strike.  Crude  was  six  dollars  a  barrel  and  Watson  readily 
proffered  the  woman  the  first  day's  production  for  her  services.  A  check  for 
two-thousan J  dollars  was  her  reward,  as  the  well  yielded  three-hundred-and- 
thirty-three  barrels  the  first  twenty-four  hours.  Mrs.  Watson  was  an  ardent 
medium  and  her  husband  humored  her  by  consulting  the  "spirits"  occasionally. 
She  became  a  lecturer  and  removed  to  California  long  since.  The  tide  of  Wat- 
son's prosperity  ebbed.  Bad  investments  and  dry-holes  ate  into  his  splendid 
fortune.  The  gold  reserve  was  drawn  upon  and  spent.  The  beautiful  home 
went  to  satisfy  creditors.  In  old  age  the  brave,  hardy,  indefatigable  oil-pioneer, 
who  had  led  the  way  for  others  to  acquire  wealth,  was  stripped  of  his  posses- 
sions. Hope  and  courage  remained.  He  operated  at  Warren  and  revived 
some  of  the  old  wells  around  the  Drake,  which  afforded  him  subsistence. 
Advanced  years  and  anxiety  enfeebled  the  stalwart  fame.  His  steps  faltered, 
and  in  1893  protracted  sickness  closed  the  busy,  eventful  life  of  the  man  who, 
more  than  any  other,  fostered  and  developed  the  petroleum-industry. 

"  What  tragic  tears  bedew  the  eye, 
What  deaths  we  suffer  ere  we  die  !" 

The  Drake  well  declined  almost  imperceptibly,  yielding  twelve  barrels  a  day 
by  the  close  of  the  year.  It  stood  idle  on  Sundays  and  for  a  week  in  December. 
Smith  had  a  light  near  a  tank  of  oil,  the  gas  from  which  caught  fire  and  burned 
the  entire  rig,  This  was  the  first  "oil-fire"  in  Pennsylvania,  but  it  was  destined 
to  have  many  successors.  Possibly  it  brought  back  vividly  to  Colonel  Drake 
the  remembrance  of  his  childish  dream,  in  which  he  and  his  brother  had  set  a 
heap  of  stubble  ablaze  and  could  not  extinguish  the  flames.  His  mother  inter- 
preted it :  "  My  son,  you  have  set  the  world  on  fire. ' ' 

The  total  output  of  the  well  in  1859  was  under  eighteen-hundred  barrels. 
One-third  of  the  oil  was  sold  at  sixty-five  cents  a  gallon  for  shipment  to  Pitts- 
burg.  George  M.  Movvbray,  the  accomplished  chemist,  who  came  to  Titusville 
in  1860  and  played  a  prominent  part  in  early  refining,  disposed  of  a  thousand 
barrels  in  New  York.  The  well  produced  moderately  for  two  or  three  years 
from  the  first  sand,  until  shut  down  by  low  prices,  which  made  it  ruinous  to  pay 
the  royalty  of  twelve-and-a-half  cents  a  gallon.  A  compromise  was  effected  in 
1860,  by  which  the  Seneca  Oil  Company  retained  a  part  of  the  land  as  fee  and 
surrendered  the  lease  to  the  Pennsylvania  Rock-Oil  Company.  Mr.  Bissell 
purchased  the  stock  of  the  other  shareholders  in  the  latter  company  for  fifty- 
thousand  dollars.  He  drilled  ten  wells,  six  of  which  for  months  yielded  eighty 
barrels  a  day,  on  the  tract  known  thenceforth  as  the  Bissell  farm,  selling  it 
eventually  to  the  Original  Petroleum  Company.  The  Drake  was  deepened  to 
five-hundred  feet  and  two  others,  drilled  beneath  the  roof  of  the  sawmill  in 
1862,  were  pumped  by  water. 

The  Drake  machinery  was  stolen  or  scattered  piecemeal.  In  1876  }. }.  Ash- 
baugh,  of  St.  Petersburg,  and  Thomas  O'Donnell,  of  Foxburg,  conveyed  the 


A   HOLE  IN  THE    GROUND.  69 

neglected  derrick  and  engine-house  to  the  Centennial  at  Philadelphia,  believing 
crowds  would  wish  to  look  at  the  mementoes.  The  exhibition  was  a  fizzle  and 
the  lumber  was  carted  off  as  rubbish.  Lewis  F.  Emery,  Jun.,  saved  the  drilling- 
tools  and  he  has  them  in  his  private  museum  at  Bradford.  They  are  pigmies 
compared  with  the  giants  of  to-day.  A  man  could  walk  away  with  them  as 
readily  as  Samson  skipped  with  the  gates  of  Gaza.  Sandow  and  Cyril  Cyr  done 
up  in  a  single  package  couldn't  do  that  with  a  modern  set.  The  late  David 
Emery,  a  man  of  heart  and  brain,  contemplated  reviving  the  old  well — the  land 
had  come  into  his  possession — and  bottling  the  oil  in  tiny  vials,  the  proceeds  to 
be  applied  to  a  Drake  monument.  He  put  up  a  temporary  rig  and  pumped  a 
half-barrel  a  week.  Death  interrupted  his  generous  purpose.  Except  that  the 
trees  and  the  saw-mill  have  disappeared,  the  neighborhood  of  the  Drake  well 
is  substantially  the  same  as  in  the  days  when  lumbering  was  at  its  height  and 
the  two-hundred  honest  denizens  of  Titusville  slept  without  locking  their  doors. 


LOCATION  AND   SURROUNDINGS  OF  THE  DRAKE  WKLL  IN   1895. 

There  is  nothing  to  suggest  to  strangers  or  travelers  that  the  spot  deserves  to  be 
remembered.     How  transitory  is  human  achievement ! 

William  Barnsdall,  Boone  Meade  and  Henry  R.  Rouse  started  the  second 
well  in  the  vicinity,  on  the  James  Parker  farm,  formerly  the  Kerr  tract  and  now 
the  home  of  Ex-Mayor  J.  H.  Caldwell.  The  location  was  north  and  within  a 
stone's  throw  of  the  Drake.  In  November,  at  the  dppth  of  eighty  feet,  the  well 
was  pumped  three  days,  yielding  only  five  barrels  of  oil.  The  outlook  had  an 
indigo  tinge  and  operations  ceased  for  a  week  or  two.  Resuming  work  in 
December,  at  one-hundred-and-sixty  feet  indications  were  satisfactory.  Tubing 
was  put  in  on  February  nineteenth,  1860,  and  the  well  responded  at  the  rate  of 
fifty  barrels  a  day  !  In  the  language  of  a  Hoosier  dialect  poet :  "Things  wuz 
gettin'  inter-restin'  !"  William  H.  Abbott,  a  gentleman  of  wealth,  reached 
Titusville  on  February  ninth  and  bought  an  interest  in  the  Parker  tract  the  same 
month.  David  Crossley's  well,  a  short  distance  south  of  the  Drake  and  the 
third  finished  on  Oil  Creek,  began  pumping  sixty  barrels  a  day  on  March  fourth. 
Local  dealers,  overwhelmed  with  an  ' '  embarrassment  of  riches, ' '  could  not  han- 
dle such  a  glut  of  oil.  SchefHin  Brothers  arranged  to  market  it  in  New  York. 
Fifty-six-thousand  gallons  from  the  Barnsdall  well  were  sold  for  seventeen- 
thousand  dollars  by  June  first,  1860.  J.  D.  Angier  contracted  to  "stamp  down 
a  hole"  for  Brewer,  Watson  &  Co.,  in  a  pit  fourteen  feet  deep,  dug  and  cribbed 
to  garner  oil  dipped  from  the  "spring"  on  the  Hamilton-McClintock  farm. 
Piercing  the  rock  by  "  hand-power"  was  a  tedious  process.  December  of  1860 


70  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

dawned  without  a  symptom  of  greasiness  in  the  well,  from  which  wondrous 
results  were  anticipated  on  account  of  the  ' '  spring. ' '  One  day's  hand-pumping 
produced  twelve  barrels  of  oil  and  so  much  water  that  an  engine  was  required  to 
pump  steadily.  By  January  twentieth,  1861,  the  engine  was  puffing  and  the  well 
producing  moderately,  the  influx  of  water  diminishing  the  yield  of  oil.  These 
four,  with  two  getting  under  way  on  the  Buchanan  farm,  north  of  the  McClin- 
tock,  and  one  on  the  J.  W.  McClintock  tract,  the  site  of  Petroleum  Centre, 
summed  up  all  the  wells  actually  begun  on  Oil  Creek  in  1859. 

Three  of  the  four  were  "kicked  down"  by  the  aid  of  spring-poles,  as  were 
hundreds  later  in  shallow  territory.  This  method  afforded  a  mode  of  develop- 
ment to  men  of  limited  means,  with  heavy  muscles  and  light  purses,  although 
totally  inadequate  for  deep  drilling.  An  elastic  pole  of  ash  or  hickory,  twelve 
to  twenty  feet  long,  was  fastened  at  one  end  to  work  over  a  fulcrum.  To  the 
other  end  stirrups  were  attached,  or  a  tilting  platform  was  secured  by  which  two 
or  three  men  produced  a  jerking  motion  that  drew  down  the  pole,  its  elasticity 
pulling  it  back  with  sufficient  force,  when  the  men  slackened  their  hold,  to  raise 


KICKING  DOWN       A  WELL. 


the  tools  a  few  inches.  The  principle  resembled  that  of  the  treadle-board  of  a 
sewing-machine,  operating  which  moves  the  needle  up  and  down.  The  tools 
were  swung  in  the  driving-pipe  or  the  "  conductor" — a  wooden  tube  eight  or  ten 
inches  square,  placed  endwise  in  a  hole  dug  to  the  rock — and  fixed  by  a  rope  to 
the  spring-pole  two  or  three  feet  from  the  workmen.  The  strokes  were  rapid 
and  a  sand-pump — a  spout  three  inches  in  diameter,  with  a  hinged  bottom  open- 
ing inward  and  a  valve  working  on  a  sliding-rod,  somewhat  in  the  manner  of 
a  syringe — removed  the  borings  mainly  by  sucking  them  into  the  spout  as  it 
was  drawn  out  quickly.  Horse-power,  in  its  general  features  precisely  the  kind 
still  used  with  threshing-machines,  was  the  next  step  forward.  Steam-engines, 
employed  for  drilling  at  Tidioute  in  September  of  1860,  reduced  labor  and 
expedited  work.  The  first  pole-derricks,  twenty-five  to  thirty-five  feet  high, 
have  been  superseded  by  structures  that  tower  seventy-two  to  ninety  feet. 

Drilling-tools,  the  chief  novelty  of  which  are  the  "jars"— a  pair  of  sliding 


A   HOLE  IN   THE   GROUND.  71 

bars  moving  within  each  other — have  increased  from  two-hundred  pounds  to 
three-thousand  in  weight.  George  Smith,  at.  Rouseville,  forged  the  first  steel- 
lined  jars  in  1866,  for  H.  Leo  Nelson,  but  the  steel  could  not  be  welded  firmly. 
Nelson  also  adopted  the  "  Pleasantville  Rig"  on  the  Meade  lease,  Rouseville,  in 
1866,  discarding  the  "Grasshopper."  In  the  former  the  walking-beam  is  fast- 
ened in  the  centre  to  the  ' '  samson-post, "  with  one  end  attached  to  the  rods  in 
the  well  and  the  other  to  the  band-wheel  crank,  exactly  as  in  side-wheel  steam- 
boats. George  Koch,  of  East  Sandy,  Pa.,  patented  numerous  improvements 
on  pumping-rigs,  drilling-tools  and  gas-rigs,  for  which  he  asked  no  remunera- 
tion. Primitive  wells  had  a  bore  of  three  or  four  inches,  half  the  present  size. 
To  exclude  surface-water  a  "  seed-bag" — a  leather  bag  the  diameter  of  the  hole 
— was  tied  tightly  to  the  tubing,  filled  with  flax-seed  and  let  down  to  the  proper 
depth.  The  top  was  left  open  and  in  a  few  hours  the  flax  swelled  so  that  the 
space  between  the  tubing  and  the  walls  of  the  well  was  impervious  to  water.  Drill- 
ing "wet  holes"  was  slow  and  uncertain,  as  the  tools  were  apt  to  break  and  the 
chances  of  a  paying  well  could  not  be  decided  until  the  pump  exhausted  the 
water.  It  is  surprising  that  over  five-thousand  wells  were  sunk  with  the  rude 
appliances  in  vogue  up  to  1868,  when  "casing" — a  larger  pipe  inserted  usually 
to  the  top  of  the  first  sand — was  introduced.  This  was  the  greatest  improve- 
ment ever  devised  in  oil-developments  and  drilling  has  reached  such  perfection 
that  holes  can  be  put  down  five-thousand  feet  safely  and  expeditiously.  Devices 
multiplied  as  experience  was  gained. 

The  tools  that  drilled  the  Barnsdall,  Crossley  and  Watson  wells  were  the 
handiwork  of  Jonathan  Lock,  a  Titusville  blacksmith.     Mr.  Lock  attained  his 
eighty-third  year,  died  at  Bradford  in  March  of  1895  and  was  buried  at  Titus- 
ville, the  city  in  which  he  passed  much  of  his  active  life.     He  was  a  worthy  type 
of  the  intelligent,  industrious  American  mechanics,  a  class  of  men  to  whom 
civilization  is  indebted  for  unnumbered  comforts  and  conveniences.   John  Bryan, 
who  built  the  first  steam-engine  in  Warren  coun-     f 
ty,  started  the  first  foundry  and  machine-shop  in     > 
Oildom  and  organized  the  firm  of  Bryan,  Dilling- 
ham  &  Co.,  began  the  manufacture  of  drilling-     j  . 
tools  in  Titusville  in  1860.  i.  ^, 

Of  the  partners  in  the  second  well  William     f  «*'         "     p 

Barnsdall  survives.  He  has  lived  in  Titusville 
sixty-three  years,  served  as  mayor  and  operated  -  . 
extensively.  His  son  Theodore,  who  pumped 
wells  on  the  Parker  and  Weed  farms,  adjoining 
the  Barnsdall  homestead,  is  among  the  largest 
and  wealthiest  producers.  Crossley's  sons  re- 
built the  rig  at  their  father's  well  in  1873,  drilled 
the  hole  deeper  and  obtained  considerable  oil. 
Other  wells  around  the  Drake  were  treated  sim- 
ilarly, paying  a  fair  profit.  In  1875  this  spas-  JONATHAN  LOCK. 
modic  revival  of  the  earliest  territory  died  out- 

Machinery  was  removed  and  the  derricks  rotted.  Jonathan  Watson,  in  1889, 
drilled  shallow  wells,  cleaned  out  several  of  the  old  ones  and  awakened  brief 
interest  in  the  cradle  of  developments.  Gas  burning  and  wells  pumping,  thirty 
years  after  the  first  strike,  seemed  indeed  strange.  Not  a  trace  of  these  repeated 
operations  remains.  The  Parker  and  neighboring  farms  north-west  and  north 
of  Titusville  proved  disappointing,  owing  to  the  absence  of  the  third  sand, 
6 


?2  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL.  , 

which  a  hole  drilled  two-thousand  feet  by  Jonathan  Watson  failed  to  reveal. 
The  Parker-Farm  Petroleum  Company  of  Philadelphia  bought  the  land  in  1863 
and  in  1870  twelve  wells  were  producing  moderately.  West  and  south-west  the 
Octave  Oil  Company  has  operated  profitably  for  twenty  years  and  Church  Run 
has  produced  generously.  Probably  two-hundred  wells  were  sunk  above  Titus- 
ville,  at  Hydetown,  Clappville,  Tryonville,  Centerville,  Riceville,  Lincolnville 
and  to  Oil-Creek  Lake,  in  vain  attempts  to  discover  an  extension  of  juicy  ter- 
ritory. 

Ex-Mayor  William  Barnsdall  is  the  oldest  living  pioneer  of  Titusville.  Not 
only  has  he  seen  the  town  grow  from  a  few  houses  to  its  present  proportions, 
but  he  is  one  of  its  most  esteemed  citizens.  Born  at  Biggleswade,  Bedfordshire, 
England,  on  February  sixth,  1810,  he  lived  there  until  1831,  when  he  came  to 
America.  In  1832  he  arrived  at  what  is  known  as  the  English  Settlement,  seven 
miles  north  of  Titusville.  The  Barnsdalls  founded  the  settlement,  Joseph,  a 
brother  of  William,  clearing  a  farm  in  the  wilderness  that  then  covered  the 
country.  Remaining  in  the  settlement  a  year,  in  1833  William  Barnsdall  came 
to  the  hamlet  of  Titusville,  where  he  has  ever  since  resided.  He  established  a 
small  shop  to  manufacture  boots  and  shoes,  continuing  at  the  business  until  the 
discovery  of  oil  in  1839.  Immediately  after  the  completion  of  the  Drake  strike 
he  began  drilling  the  second  well  on  Oil  Creek.  Before  this  well  produced  oil,  in 
February  of  1860,  he  sold  a  part  interest  to  William  H.  Abbott  for  ten-thousand 
dollars.  He  associated  himself  with  Abbott  and  James  Parker  and,  early  in 
1860,  commenced  the  first  oil-refinery  on  Oil  Creek.  It  was  sold  to  Jonathan 
Watson  for  twenty-five-thousand  dollars.  From  those  early  days  to  the  present 
Mr.  Barnsdall  has  been  identified  with  the  production  of  petroleum.  Although 
thus  engaged,  he  found  time  to  identify  himself  with  many  other  affairs.  Always 
benevolent,  he  has  made  a  record  that  will  live  long  after  he  has  passed  from 
earth.  In  1878  the  people  elected  him  mayor  by  a  very  large  majority  over  two 
opposing  candidates.  In  1880  he  was  elected  treasurer  of  the  city.  He  served 
both  positions  in  a  manner  that  won  for  him  the  gratitude  of  his  fellow-citizens. 
During  his  administration  as  mayor  he  effected  many  reforms  that  accrued  to 
the  benefit  of  the  taxpayers.  At  the  ripe  age  of  eighty-six  years,  respected  as 
few  men  are  in  any  community  and  enjoying  an  unusual  measure  of  mental  and 
physical  strength,  he  calmly  awaits  "the  inevitable  hour." 

Born  in  England  in  iSiS,  David  Crossley  ran  away  from  home  and  came  to 
America  as  a  stowaway  in  1828.  He  found  relatives  at  Paterson,  N.  J.,  and 
lived  with  them  until  about  1835,  when  he  bound  himself  out  to  learn  black- 
smithing.  On  March  seventeenth,  1839,  he  married  Jane  Alston  and  in  the 
winter  of  1841-2  walked  from  New  York  to  Titusville,  walking  back  in  the 
spring.  The  following  autumn  he  brought  his  family  to  Titusville.  For  a  few 
years  he  tried  farming,  but  gave  it  up  and  went  back  to  his  trade  until  1859, 
when  he  formed  a  partnership  with  William  Barnsdall,  William  H.  Abbott  and 
P.  T.  Witherop,  under  the  firm-name  of  Crossley,  Witherop  &  Co.,  and  began 
drilling  the  third  well  put  down  on  Oil  Creek.  The  well  was  completed  on 
March  tenth,  1860,  having  been  drilled  one-hundred-and-forty  feet  with  a  spring- 
pole.  It  produced  at  the  rate  of  seventy-five  barrels  per  day  for  a  short  time. 
The  next  autumn  the  property  was  abandoned  on  account  of  decline  in  produc- 
tion. In  1865  Crossley  bought  out  his  partners  and  drilled  the  well  to  a  depth 
of  five-hundred-and-fifty  feet,  but  again  abandoned  it  because  of  water.  In  1872 
he  and  his  son  drilled  other  wells  upon  the  same  property  and  in  a  short  time  had 
so  reduced  the  water  that  the  investment  became  a  paying  one.  In  1873  ne  a°d 


A   HOLE  IN   THE  GROUND.  73 

William  Barnsdall  and  others  drilled  the  first  producing  well  in  the  Bradford 
oil-field.  His  health  failed  in  1875  and  he  died  on  October  eleventh,  1880,  re- 
spected by  all  for  his  manliness  and  integrity. 

Hon.  David  Emery,  the  last  owner  of  the  Drake  well,  was  for  many  years  a 
successful  oil-operator.  At  Pioneer  he  drilled  a  number  of  prime  wells,  follow- 
ing the  course  of  developments  along  Oil  Creek.  He  organized  the  Octave  Oil 
Company  and  was  its  chief  officer.  Removing  to  Titusville,  he  erected  a  fine 
residence  and  took  a  prominent  part  in  pub- 
lic affairs.  His  purse  was  ever  open  to  for- 
ward a  good  cause.  Had  the  Republican 
party,  of  which  he  was  an  active  member, 
been  properly  alive  to  the  interests  of  the 
Commonwealth,  he  would  have  been  Au- 
ditor-General of  Pennsylvania.  In  all  the 
relations  and  duties  of  life  David  Emery 
was  a  model  citizen.  Called  hence  in  the 
vigor  of  stalwart  manhood,  multitudes  of 
attached  friends  cherish  his  memory  as  that 
"of  one  who  loved  his  fellow-men." 

Thus  dawned  the  petroleum-day  that 
could  not  be  hidden  under  myriads  of  bush- 
els. The  report  of  the  Drake  well  traveled 
"from  Greenland's  icy  mountains"  to 
"India's  coral  strands,"  causing  unlimited 

guessing  as  to  the  possible  outcome.  Crude  petroleum  was  useful  for  various 
things,  but  a  farmer  who  visited  the  newest  wonder  hit  a  fresh  lead.  Begging 
a  jug  of  the  oil,  he  paralyzed  Colonel  Drake  by  observing  as  he  strode  off: 
"This'll  be  durned  good  tew  spread  onto  buckwheat-cakes  !" 

Bishop  Simpson  once  delivered  his  lecture  on  "American  Progress,"  in 
which  he  did  not  mention  petroleum,  before  an  immense  Washington  audience. 
President  Lincoln  heard  it  and  said,  as  he  and  the  eloquent  speaker  came  out  of 
the  hall :  "  Bishop,  you  didn't  'strike  ile'  !" 

When  the  Barnsdall  well,  on  the  Parker  farm,  produced  hardly  any  oil  from 
the  first  sand,  the  coming  Mayor  of  Titusville  quietly  clinched  the  argument  in 
favor  of  drilling  it  deeper  by  remarking  :  "  It's  a  long  way  from  the  bottom  of 
that  hole  to  China  and  I'm  bound  to  bore  for  tea-leaves  if  we  don't  get  the 
grease  sooner !" 

"  De  Lawd  thinks  heaps  ob  Pennsylvany, "  said  a  colored  exhorter  in  Pitts- 
burg,  "fur  jes'  ez  whales  iz  gettin'  sca'ce  he  pints  outen  de  way  fur  Kunnel 
Drake  ter  'scoveh  petroleum  !"  A  solemn  preacher  in  Crawford  county  held  a 
different  opinion.  One  day  he  tramped  into  Titusville  to  relieve  his  burdened 
mind.  He  cornered  Drake  on  the  street  and  warned  him  to  quit  taking  oil  from 
the  ground.  "Do  you  know,"  he  hissed,  "that  you're  interfering  with  the 
Almighty  Creator  of  the  universe  ?  God  put  that  oil  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth 
to  burn  the  world  at  the  last  day  and  you,  poor  worm  of  the  dust,  are  trying  to 
thwart  His  plans  !"  No  wonder  the  loud  check  in  the  Colonel's  barred  panta- 
loons wilted  at  this  unexpected  outburst,  which  Drake  often  recounted  with 
extreme  gusto. 

The  night  "Uncle  Billy"  Smith's  lantern  ignited  the  tanks  at  the  Drake 
well  the  blaze  and  smoke  of  the  first  oil-fire  in  Pennsylvania  ascended  high.  A 
loud-mouthed  professor  of  religion,  whose  piety  was  of  the  brand  that  needed. 


74  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

close  watching  in  a  horse-trade,  saw  the  sight  and  scampered  to  the  hills  shout- 
ing :  "  It's  the  day  of  judgment !"  How  he  proposed  to  dodge  the  reckoning, 
had  his  surmise  been  correct,  the  terrified  victim  could  not  explain  when  his 
fright  subsided  and  friends  rallied  him  on  the  scare. 

The  Drake  well  blazed  the  path  in  the  wilderness  that  set  petroleum  on  its 
triumphant  march.  This  nation,  already  the  most  enlightened,  was  to  be  the 
most  enlightening  under  the  sun.  An  Atlantic  of  oil  lay  beneath  its  feet. 
America,  its  young,  plump  sister,  could  laugh  at  lean  Europe.  War  raged  and 
the  old  world  sought  to  drain  the  republic  of  its  gold.  The  United  States  ex- 
ported mineral-fat  and  kept  the  yellow  dross  at  home.  Petroleum  was  crowned 
king,  dethroning  cotton  and  yielding  a  revenue,  within  four  years  of  Drake's 
modest  strike,  exceeding  that  from  coal  and  iron  combined  !  Talk  of  Califor- 
nia's gold-fever,  Colorado's  silver-furore  and  Barney  Barnato's  Caffir-mania. 

American  petroleum  is  a  leading  article  of  commerce,  requiring  hundreds 
of  vessels  to  transport  it  to  distant  lands.  Its  refined  product  is  known  all  over 
the  civilized  world.  It  has  found  its  way  to  every  part  of  Europe  and  the 
remotest  portions  of  Asia.  It  shines  on  the  western  prairie,  burns  in  the  homes 
of  New  England  and  illumines  miles  of  princely  warehouses  in  the  great  cities 
of  America.  Everywhere  is  it  to  be  met  with,  in  the  Levant  and  the  Orient,  in 
the  hovel  of  the  Russian  peasant  and  the  harem  of  the  Turkish  pasha.  It  is  the 
one  article  imported  from  the  United  States  and  sold  in  the  bazaars  of  Bagdad, 
the  ' '  City  of  the  Thousand-and-One-Nights."  It  lights  the  dwellings,  the  tem- 
ples and  the  mosques  amid  the  ruins  of  Babylon  and  Nineveh.  It  is  the  light 
of  Abraham's  birthplace  and  of  the  hoary  city  of  Damascus.  It  burns  in  the 
Grotto  of  the  Nativity  at  Bethlehem,  in  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre  at 
Jerusalem,  on  the  Acropolis  of  Athens  and  the  plains  of  Troy,  in  cottage  and 
palace  along  the  banks  of  the  Bosphorus,  the  Euphrates,  the  Tigris  and  the 
Golden  Horn.  It  has  penetrated  China  and  Japan,  invaded  the  fastnesses  of 
Tartary,  reached  the  wilds  of  Australia  and  shed  its  radiance  over  African 
wastes.  Pennsylvania  petroleum  is  the  true  cosmopolite,  omnipresent  and 
omnipotent  in  fulfilling  its  mission  of  illuminating  the  universe  !  A  product  of 
nature  that  is  such  a  controlling  influence  in  the  affairs  of  men  may  well  chal- 
lenge attention  to  its  origin,  its  history  and  its  economic  uses. 

All  this  from  a  hole  seventy  feet  in  the  ground  ! 

A  grape-seed  is  a  small  affair, 

Yet,  swallow'd  when  you  sup, 
In  your  appendix  it  may  stick 

Till  doctors  carve  you  up. 

A  coral-insect  is  not  large, 

Still  it  can  build  a  reef 
On  which  the  biggest  ship  that  floats 

May  quickly  come  to  grief. 

A  hint,  a  word,  a  look,  a  breath 

May  bear  envenom'd  stings, 
From  all  of  which  the  moral  learn: 

Despise  not  little  things  ! 


VI. 


THE   WORLD'S    LUBRICANT. 

A  GLANCE  AT  A  PRETTY  SETTLEMENT — EVANS  AND  His  WONDERFUL  WELL — HEAVY 
OIL  AT  FRANKLIN  TO  GREASE  ALL  THE  WHEELS  IN  CREATION — ORIGIN  OF  A  POP- 
ULAR PHRASE— OPERATIONS  ON  FRENCH  CREEK-  EXCITEMENT  AT  FEVER  HEAT — 
GALENA  AND  SIGNAL  OIL-WORKS — RISE  AND  PROGRESS  OF  A  GREAT  INDUSTRY — 
CRUMBS  SWEPT  UP  FOR  GENERAL  CONSUMPTION. 


"  A  cargo  of  petroleum  may  cross  the  ocean  in  a  vessel  propelled  by  steam  it  has  generated,  acting 
upon  an  engine  it  lubricates  and  directed  by  an  engineer  who  may  grease  his  hair,  limber  his 
joints  and  freshen  his  liver  with  the  same  article." — Petrolia,  A.  D.  1870. 

"  Franklin  wells  produce  the  finest  lubricant  on  earth." — Brief  History  of  Petroleum,  A.  D.  1885. 

*'  Friction,  n^t  motion,  is  the  great  destroyer  of  machinery." — Engineering  Journal. 


HEAP  and  abundant  light  the  island- 
well  on  Oil  Creek  assured  the  nations 
sitting  in  darkness.  If  there  are 
"tongues  in  trees"  and  "sermons 
in  stones"  the  trickling  stream  of 
greenish  liquid  murmured  :  "Bring 
on  your  lamps — we  can  fill  them  !" 
The  second  oil-well  in  Pennsylvania, 
eighteen  miles  from  Col.  Drake's, 
changed  the  strain  to:  "Bring  on 
your  wheels— we  can  grease  them  !" 
America  was  to  be  the  world's  illu- 
minator and  lubricator — not  merely 
to  dispel  gloom  and  chase  hobgob- 
lins, but  to  increase  the  power  of 
machinery  by  decreasing  the  imped- 
iments to  easy  motion.  Friction  has 
cost  enough  for  extra  wear  and  stop- 
pages and  breakages  "  to  buy  every 
darkey  forty  acres  and  a  mule."  The 
first  coal-oil  for  sale  in  this  country  was  manufactured  at  Waltham,  Mass.,  in 
1852,  by  Luther  Atwood,  who  called  it  "Coup  Oil,"  from  the  recent  coup  of 
Louis  Napoleon.  Although  highly  esteemed  as  a  lubricator,  its  offensive  odor 
and  poor  quality  would  render  it  unmerchantable  to-day.  Samuel  Downer's 
hydro-carbon  oils  in  1856  were  marked  improvements,  yet  they  would  cut  a 
sorry  figure  beside  the  unrivaled  lubricant  produced  from  the  wells  at  Franklin, 

77 


BIG    ROCK   BELOW    FRANKI 


78  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

the  county-seat  of  Venango.  It  is  a  coincidence  that  the  petroleum  era  should 
have  introduced  light  and  lubrication  almost  simultaneously,  one  on  Oil  Creek, 
the  other  on  French  Creek,  and  both  in  a  region  comparatively  isolated.  "  Mis- 
fortunes never  come  singly, ' '  said  the  astounded  father  of  twins,  in  a  paroxysm 
of  bewilderment ;  but  happily  blessings  often  come  treading  closely  on  each 
other's  heels. 

Pleasantly  situated  on  French  Creek  and  the  Allegheny  River,  Franklin  is 
an  interesting  town,  with  a  history  dating  from  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  John  Frazer,  a  gunsmith,  occupied  a  hut  and  traded  with  the  Indians 
in  1747.  Four  forts,  one  French,  one  British  and  two  American,  were  erected 
in  1754,  1760,  1787  and  1796.  Captain  Joncaire  commanded  the  French  forces. 
George  Washington,  a  British  lieutenant,  with  no  premonition  of  fathering  a 
great  country,  visited  the  spot  in  1753.  The  north-west  was  a  wilderness  and 
Pittsburg  had  not  been  laid  out.  Franklin  was  surveyed  in  1795,  created  a  bor- 
ough in  1829  and  a  city  in  1869,  deriving  its  chief  importance  from  petroleum. 
Lofty  hills  and  winding  streams  are  conspicuous.  Spring-water  is  abundant, 
the  air  is  invigorating  and  healthfulness  is  proverbial.  James  Johnston,  a  negro- 
farmer  of  Frenchcreek  township,  stuck  it  out  for  one-hundred-and-nine  sum- 
mers, lamenting  that  death  got  around  six  months  too  soon  for  him  to  attend 
the  Philadelphia  Centennial.  Angus  McKenzie,  of  Sugarcreek,  whose  strong- 
box served  as  a  bank  in  early  days,  reached  one-hundred-and-eight.  Mrs. 
McDowell,  a  pioneer,  was  bright  and  nimble  three  years  beyond  the  century- 
mark.  Galbraith  McMullen,  of  Waterloo,  touched  par.  John  Morrison,  the 
first  court-crier,  rounded  out  ninety-eight.  A  successor,  Robert  Lytle,  was  sum- 
moned at  eighty-seven,  his  widow  living  to  celebrate  her  ninety-fourth  birthday. 
David  Smith  succumbed  at  ninety-nine  and 
Willliam  Raymond  at  ninety-three.  Mr.  Ray- 
mond was  straight  as  an  arrow,  walked  smart- 
ly and  in  youth  was  the  close  friend  of  John  J. 
Pearson,  who  began  to  practice  law  at  Frank- 
lin and  was  President  Judge  of  Dauphin  county 
thirty-three  years.  J.  B.  Nicklin,  fifty  years  a 
respected  citizen,  died  in  1890  at  eighty-nine. 
To  the  end  he  retained  his  mental  and  phys- 
ical strength,  kept  the  accounts  of  the  Baptist 
church,  was  at  his  desk  regularly  and  could 
hit  the  bullseye  with  the  crack  shots  of  the 
military  company.  William  Hilands,  county- 
surveyor,  was  a  familiar  figure  on  the  streets 
at  eighty -seven.  Rev.  Dr.  Crane,  who  went  to 
his  reward  a  few  weeks  since,  preached,  lec- 
tured, visited  the  sick  and  continued  to  do 

good  at  eighty-six.  Ready  for  the  call  to  "come  up  higher,"  not  willing  to  be 
idle  and  rust  out,  of  him  it  could  truly  be  said  that  "his  last  days  were  his  best 
days. ' '  At  eighty-five  ' '  Uncle  Billy' '  Grove,  of  Canal,  would  hunt  deer  in  Forest 
county  and  walk  farther  and  faster  than  any  man  in  the  township.  The  people 
who  have  rubbed  fourscore  would  fill  a  ten-acre  patch.  Of  course,  some  get 
sick  and  die  young,  or  the  doctors  would  starve,  heaven  would  be  short  of 
youthful  tenants  and  the  theories  of  Malthus  might  have  to  be  tried  on. 

Franklin  boasts  the  finest  stone  side-walks  in  the  State.     There  are  impos- 
ing churches,  shady  parks,  broad  streets,  cosy  homes,  spacious  stores,  first-class 


THE  WORLD'S  LUBRICANT.  79 

schools,  fine  hotels  and  inviting  drives.  For  years  the  Baptist  quartette  has  not 
been  surpassed  in  New  York  or  Philadelphia.  The  opera-house  is  a  gem.  Three 
railroads — a  fourth  is  coming  that  will  lop  off  sixty-five  miles  between  New  York 
and  Chicago— and  electric  street-cars  supply  rapid  transit.  Five  substantial 
banks,  a  half-dozen  millionaires,  two-dozen  hundred-thousand-dollar-citizens 
and  multitudes  of  well-to-do  property-holders  give  the  place  financial  backbone. 
Manufactures  flourish,  wages  are  liberal  and  many  workmen  own  their  snug 
houses.  Probably  no  town  in  the  United  States,  of  seven-thousand  population, 
has  greater  wealth,  better  society  and  a  kindlier  feeling  clear  through  the  com- 
munity. 

On  the  south  bank  of  French  Creek,  at  Twelfth  and  Otter  streets,  James 
Evans,  blacksmith,  had  lived  twenty  years.  A  baby  when  his  parents  settled 
farther  up  in  1802,  he  removed  to  Franklin  in  1839.  His  house  stood  near  the 
"spring"  from  which  Hulings  and  Whitman  wrung  out  the  viscid  scum.  In  dry 
weather  the  well  he  dug  seventeen  feet  for  water  smelled  and  tasted  of  petro- 
leum. Tidings  of  Drake's  success  set  the  blacksmith  thinking.  Drake  had 
bored  into  the  well  close  to  the  "spring"  and  found  oil.  Why  not  try  the  ex- 
periment at  Franklin  ?  Evans  was  not  flush  of  cash,  but  the  hardware-dealer 
trusted  him  for  the  iron  and  he  hammered  out  rough  drilling-tools.  He  and 
his  son  Henry  rigged  a  spring-pole  and  bounced  the  drill  in  the  water-well. 
At  seventy-two  feet  a  crevice  was  encountered.  The  tools  dropped,  breaking 
off  a  fragment  of  iron,  which  obstinately  refused  to  be  fished  out.  Pumping  by 
hand  would  determine  whether  a  prize  or  a  blank  was  to  be  drawn  in  the  greas- 
ian  lottery.  Two  men  plied  the  pump  vigorously.  A  stream  of  dark-green  fluid 
gushed  forth  at  the  rate  of  twenty-five  barrels  a  day.  It  was  heavy  oil,  about 
thirty  degrees  gravity,  free  from  grit  and  smooth  as  silk.  The  greatest  lubricant 
on  earth  had  been  unearthed  ! 

Picture  the  pandemonium  that  followed.  Franklin  had  no  such  convulsion 
since  the  William  B.  Duncan,  the  first  steamboat,  landed  one  Sunday  evening 
in  January,  1828.  The  villagers  speeded  to  the  well  as  though  all  the  imps  of 
sheol  were  in  pursuit.  November  court  adjourned  in  half  the  number  of  seconds 
Sut  Lovingood's  nest  of  hornets  broke  up  the  African  camp-meeting.  Judge 
John  S.  McCalmont,  whose  able  opinions  the  Supreme  Court  liked  to  adopt, 
decided  there  was  ample  cause  for  action.  A  doctor  rushed  to  the  scene  hatless, 
coatless  and  shoeless.  Women  deserted  their  households  without  fixing  their 
back-hair  or  getting  inside  their  dress-parade  toggery.  Babies  cried,  children 
screamed,  dogs  barked,  bells  rang  and  two  horses  ran  away.  At  prayer-meeting 
a  ruling  elder,  whom  the  events  of  the  day  had  wrought  to  fever-heat,  raised  a 
hilarious  snicker  by  imploring  God  to  "send  a  shower  of  blessings — yea,  Lord, 
twenty-five  barrels  of  blessings  !  "  Altogether  it  was  a  red-letter  forenoon,  for 
twenty-five  barrels  a  day  of  thirty-dollar  oil  none  felt  inclined  to  sneeze  at. 

That  night  a  limb  of  the  law,  "dressed  in  his  best  suit  of  clothes, "  called  at 
the  Evans  domicile.  Miss  Anna,  one  of  the  fair  daughters  of  the  house,  greeted 
him  at  the  door  and  said  jokingly  :  "  Dad's  struck  ile  !  "  The  expression  caught 
the  town,  making  a  bigger  hit  than  the  well  itself.  It  spread  far  and  wide,  was 
printed  everywhere  and  enshrined  permanently  in  the  petroleum-vernacular. 
The  young  lady  married  Miles  Smith,  the  eminent  furniture-dealer,  still  trading 
on  Thirteenth  street.  In  1875  Mr.  Smith  revisited  his  native  England,  after  many 
years'  absence.  Meeting  a  party  of  gentlemen  at  a  friend's  house,  the  conver- 
sation turned  upon  Pennsylvania.  "May  I  avvsk,  Mr.  Smith,"  a  Londoner  in- 
quired, "if  you  hever  'eard  in  your  'ome  about  ' dad's  stwuck  ile '  ?  I  wead  it 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


iathepapahs,  doncherknow,  but  I  fawncied  it  nevah  weally  appeahed."  Mr. 
Smith  had  "  'card  "  it  and  the  delight  of  the  company,  when  he  recited  the  cir- 
cumstances and  told  of  marrying  the  girl,  may  be  conceived.  The  phrase  is 
billed  for  immortality. 

Sufficient  oil  to  pay  for  an  engine  was  soon  pumped.  Steam-power  increased 
the  yield  to  seventy  barrels  !  Franklin  became  the  Mecca  of  speculators,  traders, 
dealers  and  monied  men.  Frederic  Prentice,  a  leader  in  aggressive  enterprises, 
offered  forty-thousand  dollars  for  the  well  and  lot.  Evans  rejected  the  bid  and 
kept  the  well,  which  declined  to  ten  or  twelve  barrels  within  six  months.  The 
price  of  oil  shrank  like  a  flannel-shirt,  but  the  lucky  disciple  of  Vulcan  realized  a 
nice  competence.  He  enjoyed  his  good  fortune  some  years  before  journeying 
to  '  '  that  bourne  from  which  no  traveler  e'er  returns.  '  '  Mrs.  Evans  long  survived, 
dying  at  eighty-six.  The  son  removed  to  Kansas,  three  daughters  died  and  one 
resides  at  Franklin.  The  old  well  experienced  its  complement  of  fluctuations. 
Mosely  &  Co.,  of  Philadelphia,  leased  it.  It  stood  idle,  the  engine  was  taken 
away,  the  rig  tumbled  and  the  hole  filled  up  partially  with  dirt  and  wreckage. 
Prices  spurted  and  the  well  was  hitched  to  a  pumping-rig  operating  others  around 
it.  Captain  S.  A.  Hull  ran  a  group  of  the  wells  on  the  flats  and  a  dozen  three 
miles  down  the  Allegheny.  He  was  a  man  of  generous  impulses,  finely  edu- 
cated and  exceedingly  companionable.  His  death,  in  1893,  resulted  in  disman- 
tling most  of  these  wells,  hardly  a  vestige  remaining  to  tell  that  the  Evans  and  its 
neighbors  ever  existed. 

"  Remorseless  Time  ! 

Fierce  spirit  of  the  glass  and  scythe  —  what  power 

Can  stay  him  in  his  silent  course,  or  melt 

His  iron  heart  \\ith  pity  ?  " 

James  Evans  was  not  "left  blooming  alone"  in  the  search  for  oily  worlds 
to  conquer.  Companies  were  organized  while  he  was  yanking  the  tools  in  the 


\vell  that  "  set  '  em  all  craz.  ' 


Th  e  first  of  these—  The  Franklin  Oil  and  Mining 
Company  —  started  work  on  October  fifth, 
twenty  rods  below  Evans,  finding  oil  at 
two-hundred-and-forty  feet  on  January 
twelfth,  1860.  The  well  pumped  about 
one-half  as  much  as  the  Evans  for  several 
months,  but  did  not  die  of  old  age.  The 
forty-two  shares  of  stock  advanced  ten- 
fold in  one  week,  selling  at  a  thousand 
dollars  each.  Three  or  four  wells  were 
put  down,  the  company  dissolving  and 
members  operating  on  their  own  hook. 

K  WaS  stron£1y  officered>  with  Arnold 
Plumer  as  president  ;  J.  P.  Hoover,  vice 
president;  Aaron  W.  Raymond,  secre- 
tary  ;  James  Bleakley,  Robert  Lamberton, 
R.  A.  Brashear,  J.  L.  Hanna  and  Thomas 
Hoge,  executive  committee.  Mr.  Plumer 
was  a  dominant  factor  in  Democratic 


COL.  JAMES    BLEAKLY 


nation  of  James  Buchanan  for  President, 
twice  a  member  of  Congress,  twice  State  Treasurer,  Canal  Commissioner  and 
founder  of  the  First  National  Bank.  At  his  death,  in  1869,  he  devised  his  family 


THE  WORLD'S  LUBRICANT.  81 

the  largest  estate  in  Venango  county.  Judge  Lamberton  opened  the  first  bank 
in  the  oil-regions,  owned  hundreds  of  houses  and  in  1885  bequeathed  each  of 
his  eight  children  a  handsome  fortune.  Colonel  Bleakley  rose  by  his  own 
exertions,  keen  foresight  and  skillful  management.  He  invested  in  productive 
realty,  drilled  scores  of  wells  around  Franklin,  built  iron-tanks  and  brick-blocks, 
established  a  bank,  held  thousands  of  acres  of  lands  and  in  1884  left  a  very 
large  inheritance  to  his  sons  and  daughters.  Mr.  Raymond  developed  the  Ray- 
milton  district — it  was  named  from  him — in  which  hundreds  of  fair  wells  have 
rewarded  Franklin  operators,  and  at  eighty-nine  was  exceedingly  quick  in  his 
movements.  Mr.  Brashear,  a  civil  engineer  and  exemplary  citizen,  has  been 
in  the  grave  twenty  years.  Mr.  Hanna  operated  heavily  in  oil,  acquired  numer- 
ous farms  and  erected  the  biggest  block — it  contained  the  first  opera-house — in 
the  city.  He  is  handling  real-estate,  but  his  former  partner,  John  Duffield, 
slumbers  in  the  cemetery.  Mr.  Hoge,  an  influential  politician,  elected  to  the 
Legislature  two  terms  and  Mayor  one  term,  has  also  joined  the  silent  majority. 

In  February,  1860,  Caldwell  &  Co.,  a  block  south-east  of  Evans,  finished  a 
paying  well  at  two-hundred  feet.  The  Farmers'  and  Mechanics'  Company,  Levi 
Dodd,  president,  drilled  a  medium  producer  at  the  foot  of  High  street,  on  the 
bank  of  the  creek.  Mr.  Dodd  was  an  old  settler,  originator  of  the  first  Sabbath- 
school  in  Franklin  and  a  ruling-elder  for  over  fifty  years.  Numerous  compa- 
nies and  individuals  pushed  work  in  the  spring.  Holes  were  sunk  in  front  yards, 
gardens  and  water-wells.  Derricks  dotted  the  landscape  thickly.  Franklin  was 
the  objective  point  of  immense  crowds  of  people.  The  earliest  wells  were  shal- 
low, seldom  exceeding  two-hundred  feet.  The  Mammoth,  near  a  huge  walnut- 
tree  back  of  the  Evans  lot,  began  flowing  on  May  fifteenth  to  the  tune  of  a  hun- 
dred barrels.  This  was  the  first  "spouter"  in  the  district  and  it  quadrupled 
the  excitement.  Four-hundred  barrels  of  oil  were  shipped  to  Pittsburg,  by  the 
steamboat  Venango,  on  April  twenty-seventh.  Twenty-two  wells  were  drilling 
and  twenty  producing  en  July  first.  Farms  for  miles  up  French  Creek  had  been 
bought  at  high  prices  and  the  noise  of  the  drill  burdened  the  summer  air.  Sugar 
Creek,  emptying  into  French  Creek  three  miles  west  of  Franklin,  shared  in  the 
activity.  Then  prices  "  came  down  like  a  thousand  of  brick."  Pumping  was 
expensive,  lands  were  scarce  and  dear,  hauling  the  oil  to  a  railroad  cost  half  its 
value  and  hosts  of  small  wells  were  abandoned.  On  November  first,  within 
the  borough  limits,  fifteen  were  yielding  one-hundred  and-forty  barrels.  Curtz 
&  Strain  had  bored  five-hundred  feet  in  October,  the  deepest  well  in  the  neighbor- 
hood, without  finding  additional  oil-bearing  rock.  The  Presidential  election 
foreboded  trouble,  threats  of  war  clouded  the  sky  and  the  year  closed  gloomily. 

The  advantages  of  Franklin  heavy-oil  as  a  lubricant  were  quickly  recog- 
nized. It  possessed  a  "body  "  that  artificial  oils  could  not  rival.  In  the  crude 
state  it  withstood  a  cold-test  twenty  degrees  below  zero.  Here  is  where  it  "had 
the  bulge"  on  alleged  lubricants  which  solidify  into  a  sort  of  liver  with  every 
twitch  of  frost.  The  producing-area  of  heavy-oil  is  restricted  to  a  limited  sec- 
tion, where  the  first  sand  is  thirty  to  sixty  feet  thick  and  the  lower  sands  were 
entirely  omitted  in  the  original  distribution  of  strata.  For  years  operators 
hugged  the  banks  of  the  streams  and  the  low  grounds,  keeping  off  the  hills 
more  willingly  than  General  Coxey  kept  off  the  Washington  grass.  The  famous 
"  Point  Hill,"  across  French  Creek  from  the  Evans  well,  went  begging  for  a  pur- 
chaser. At  its  southern  base  Mason  &  Lane,  Cook  &  Co.,  Welsby  &  Smith, 
Shuster,  Andrews,  Green  and  others  had  profitable  wells,  but  nobody  dreamed 
of  boring  through  the  steep  "Point"  for  oil.  J.  Lowry  Dewoody  offered  the 


82  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

lordly  hill,  with  its  forty  acres  of  dense  evergreen-brush,  to  Charles  Miller  for 
fifteen-hundred  dollars.  He  wanted  the  money  to  drill  on  the  flats  and  the  hill 
was  an  elephant  on  his  hands. 

During  the  Columbian  Exposition  an  aged  man  alighted  from  a  western 
train  at  the  union-depot  at  Chicago.  His  rifle  and  his  buckskin-suit  indicated 
the  Kit-Carson  brand  of  hunter.  He  gazed  about  him  in  amazement  and  a 
crowd  assembled.  "Wai,"  ejaculated  the  white-haired  Nimrod,  "this  be  Chi- 
cago, eh  ?  Sixty  years  ago  I  killed  lots  ov  game  right  whar  we  stan'  an'  old  man 
Kinzey  fell  all  over  hisse'f  to  trade  me  a  hunnerd  acre  ov  land  fur  a  pair  ov  cow- 
hide boots  !  I  might  hev  took  him  up,  but,  consarn  it,  I  didn't  hev  the  boots !" 

Something  of  this  kind  would  apply  to  Mr.  Miller  and  the  Dewoody  propo- 
sition. He  had  embarked  in  the  business  that  was  to  bring  him  wealth  and 
honor,  but  just  at  that  time  "  didn't  hev"  the  fifteen-hundred  to  spare  from  his 
working-capital  for  the  fun  of  owning  a  hill  presumed  to  be  worthless  except 
for  scenery.  Colonel  Bleakley  and  Dr.  A.  G.  Egbert  bought  it  later  at  a  low 
figure.  Operations  scaled  the  slopes  and  hills  and  the  first  well  on  the  "  Point" 
was  of  the  kind  to  whet  the  appetite  for  more.  Bleakley  &  Egbert  pocketed  a 
keg  of  cold-cash  from  their  wells  and  the  royalty  paid  by  lessees.  Daniel 
Grimm's  production  put  him  in  the  van  of  Franklin  oilmen.  He  came  to  the 
town  in  1861,  had  a  dry-goods  store  in  partnership  with  the  late  William  A. 
Horton  and  in  1869  drilled  his  first  well.  W.  J.  Mattern  and  Edward  Rial  & 
Son  had  a  rich  slice.  The  foundation  of  a  dozen  fortunes  was  laid  on  the 
"Pelnt,"  which  yields  a  few  barrels  daily,  although  only  a  shadow  of  its  former 
self.  From  the  western  end  of  the  hill  thousands  of  tons  of  a  peculiar  shale 
have  been  manufactured  into  paving-brick,  the  hardest  and  toughest  in  America. 
A  million  dollars  would  not  pay  for  the  oil  taken  from  the  hill  that  found  no 
takers  at  fifteen-hundred ! 

Dewoody,  over  whose  grave  the  storms  of  a  dozen  winters  have  blown,  was 
a  singular  character.  He  cared  not  a  continental  for  style  and  was  independent 
in  speech  and  behavior.  Bagging  a  term  in  the  Legislature  as  a  Democratic- 
Greenbacker,  his  rugged  honesty  was  proof  against  the  allurements  of  the  lob- 
byists, jobbers  and  heelers  who  disgrace  common  decency.  His  most  remark- 
able act  was  a  violent  assault  on  the  Tramp-Bill,  a  measure  cruel  as  the  laws  of 
Draco,  which  Rhoads  of  Carlisle  contrived  to  pass.  He  paced  the  central  aisle, 
spoke  in  the  loudest  key  and  gesticulated  fiercely.  Tossing  his  long  auburn 
hair  like  a  lion's  mane,  he  wound  up  his  torrent  of  denunciation  with  terrible 
emphasis  :  "  If  Jesus  Christ  were  on  earth  this  monstrous  bill  would  jerk  him  as 
a  vagrant  and  dump  him  into  the  lock-up  !" 

Gradually  developments  crept  north  and  east.  The  Galloway — its  Dolly 
Varden  well  was  a  daisy — Lamberton  and  McCalmont  farms  were  riddled  with 
holes  that  repaid  the  outlay  lavishly.  Henry  F.  James  drilled  scores  of  paying 
wells  on  these  tracts.  In  his  youth  he  circled  the  globe  on  whaling  voyages 
and  learned  coopering.  Spending  a  few  months  at  Pithole  in  1865,  he  returned 
to  Venango  county  in  1871,  superintended  the  Franklin  Pipe-Line  five  years  and 
operated  judiciously.  He  was  active  in  agriculture  and  served  three  terms  in 
the  Legislature  with  distinguished  fidelity.  He  defeated  measures  inimical  to 
the  oil-industry  and  promoted  the  passage  of  the  Marshall  Bill,  by  which  pipe- 
lines were  permitted  to  buy,  sell  or  consolidate.  This  sensible  law  relieves 
pipe-lines  in  the  older  districts,  where  the  production  is  very  light,  from  the 
necessity  of  maintaining  separate  equipments  at  a  loss  or  ruining  hundreds  of 
well-owners  by  tearing  up  the  pipes  for  junk  and  depriving  operators  of  trans- 


THE   WORLD'S  L UBRICANT.  83 

portation.  The  late  Casper  Frank,  William  Painter— he  was  killed  at  his  wells 
— Dr.  Fee,  the  Harpers,  E.  D.  Yates  and  others  extended  the  field  into  Sugar- 
creek  township.  Elliott,  Nesbett  &  Bell's  first  well  on  the  Snyder  farm,  starting 
at  thirty  barrels  and  settling  down  to  regular  work  at  fifteen,  elongated  the  Gal- 
loway pool  and  brought  adjoining  lands  into  play.  Kunkel  &  Newhouse,  Stock 
&  Co.,  Mitchell  &  Parker,  Crawford  &  Dickey,  Dr.  Galbraith  and  M.  O'Connor 
kept  many  sets  of  tools  from  rusting.  The  extension  to  the  Carter  and  frontier- 
farms  developed  oil  of  lighter  gravity,  but  a  prime  lubricator.  Mrs.  Harold,  a 
Chicago  lady,  dreamed  a  certain  plot,  which  she  beheld  distinctly,  would  yield 
heavy-oil  in  abundance.  She  visited  Franklin,  traversed  the  district  a  mile  in 
advance  of  developed  territory,  saw  the  land  of  her  dream,  bargained  for  it, 
drilled  wells  and  obtained  "  lashin's  of  oil !"  Still  there  are  bipeds  in  bifurcated 
garments  who  declare  woman's  "sphere"  is  the  kitchen,  with  dish-washing, 
sock-darning  and  meal-getting  as  her  highest  "rights  !" 

Jacob  Sheasley,  who  came  from  Dauphin  county  in  1860  and  branched  into 
oil  in  1864,  is  the  largest  operator  in  the  bailiwick.  He  drilled  at  Pithole,  Par- 
ker, Bradford,  on  all  sides  of  Franklin  and  put  down  a  hundred  wells  the  last 
two  years.  He  enlarged  the  boundaries  of  the  lubricating  section  by  leasing 
lands  previously  condemned  and  sinking  test-wells  in  1893-4,  with  gratifying 
results.  Rarely  missing  his  guess  on  territory,  he  has  been  almost  invariably 
fortunate.  His  son,  George  R.,  has  operated  in  Venango  and  Butler  counties 
and  owns  a  bunch  of  desirable  wells  on  Bully  Hill,  with  his  brother  Charles  as 
partner.  The  father  and  two  sons  are  "three  of  a  kind"  hard  to  beat. 

A  mile  north  of  Franklin,  in  February  of  1870,  the  Surprise  well  on  Patchel 
Run,  a  streamlet  bearing  the  name  of  the  earliest  hat-maker,  surprised  everybody 
by  its  output.  It  foamed  and  gassed  and  frothed  excessively,  filling  the  pipe 
with  oil  and  water.  Throngs  tramped  the  turnpike  over  the  toilsome  hill  to  look 
at  the  boiling,  fuming  tank  into  which  the  well  belched  its  contents.  ' '  Good  for 
four-hundred  barrels"  was  the  verdict.  A  party  of  us  hurried  from  Oil  Creek 
to  judge  for  ourselves.  Although  the  estimate  was  six  times  too  great,  a  lease 
of  adjacent  lands  would  not  be  bad  to  take.  Rev.  Mr.  Johns,  retired  pastor  of 
the  Presbyterian  church  at  Spartansburg,  Crawford  county,  had  charge  of  the 
property.  My  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Johns  devolved  upon  me  the  duty  of  nego- 
tiating for  the  tract.  He  received  me  graciously  and  would  be  pleased  to  lease 
twenty  acres  for  one-half  the  oil  and  one-thousand  dollars  an  acre  bonus  !  Br'er 
John's  exalted  notions  soared  far  too  high  to  be  entertained  seriously.  The 
Surprise  fizzled  down  to  four  or  five  barrels  in  a  week  and  the  good  minister — 
for  twenty  years  he  has  been  enjoying  his  treasure  in  heaven — never  fingered  a 
penny  from  his  land  save  the  royalty  of  two  or  three  small  wells. 

Major  W.  T.  Baum  has  operated  in  the  heavy-oil  field  thirty-two  years,  be- 
ginning in  1864.  He  passed  through  the  Pithole  excitement  and  drilled  largely 
at  Foster,  Pleasantville,  Scrubgrass,  Bullion,  Gas  City,  Clarion,  Butler  and  Tar- 
kiln.  His  faith  in  Scrubgrass  territory  has  been  recompensed  richly.  In  1894 
he  sank  a  well  on  the  west  bank  of  the  Allegheny,  opposite  Kennerdell  Station, 
in  hope  of  a  ten-barrel  strike.  It  pumped  one-hundred-and-fifty  barrels  a  day 
for  months  and  it  is  doing  fifty  barrels  to-day,  with  three  more  of  similar  caliber 
to  keep  it  company  !  The  Major's  persevering  enterprise  deserves  the  reward 
Dame  Fortune  is  bestowing.  He  owns  the  wells  and  lands  on  Patchel  Run, 
which  yield  a  pleasant  revenue.  Colonel  J.  H.  Cain,  Colonel  L.  H.  Fassett  and 
J.  W.  Grant,  all  successful  operators,  have  their  wells  in  the  vicinity.  Modern 
devices  connect  wells  far  apart,  by  coupling  them  with  rods  two  to  ten  feet 


84  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

above  ground,  so  that  a  single  engine  can  pump  thirty  or  forty  in  shallow  terri- 
tory. The  downward  stroke  of  one  helps  the  upward  stroke  of  the  other,  each 
pair  nearly  balancing.  This  enables  the  owners  of  small  wells  to  pump  them  at 
the  least  expense.  Heavy-oil  has  sold  for  years  at  three-sixty  to  four  dollars  a 
barrel,  consequently  a  quarter-barrel  apiece  from  forty  wells,  handled  by  one 
man  and  engine,  would  exceed  the  income  from  a  quarter-million  dollars  salted 
down  in  government  bonds.  It  is  worth  traveling  a  long  distance  to  stand  on 
the  hill  and  watch  the  pumping  of  Baum's,  Grimm's,  Cain's,  Grant's,  Sheasley's 
and  James's  wells,  some  of  them  a  mile  from  the 
power  that  sets  the  strings  of  connecting  rods  in 
motion. 

On  Two-Mile  Run,  up  the  Allegheny  two 
miles,  \V.  S.  McMullan  drilled  several  wells  in 
1871-2.  The  product  was  the  blackest  of  black 
oils,  indicating  a  deposit  separated  from  the  main 
reservoir  of  the  lubricating  region.  Subsequent 
operations  demonstrated  that  a  dry  streak  inter- 
vened. Captain  L.  L.  Ray  put  down  fair  wells 
near  the  river  in  1894.  Mr.  McMullan  resided 
at  Rouseville  and  had  valuable  interests  on  Oil 
Creek.  He  served  a  term  in  the  State  Senate, 
reflecting  honor  upon  himself  and  his  constit- 
uents. A  man  of  integrity  and  capacity,  he 
could  be  trusted  implicity.  Fifteen  years  ago  he 
removed  to  Missouri  to  engage  in  lumbering. 

Senator  McMullan,  Captain  William  Hasson,  member  of  Assembly,  and  Judge 
Trunkey,  who  presided  over  the  court  and  later  graced  the  Supreme  Bench, 
were  three  Venango-county  men  in  public  life  whom  railroad-passes  never 
swerved  from  the  path  of  duty.  They  refused  all  such  favors  and  paid  their  way 
like  gentlemen.  If  lawgivers  and  judges  of  their  noble  impress  were  the  rule 
rather  than  the  exception  — "a  consummation  devoutly  to  be  wished"  — 
grasping  corporations  would  not  own  legislatures  and  courts  and  "drive  a 
coach  and  four"  through  any  enactment  with  impunity. 

George  P.  Smith's  tract  of  land  between  Franklin  and  Two-Mile  Run  netted 
him  a  competence  in  oil  and  then  sold  for  one-hundred-thousand  dollars.  Mr. 
Smith  dispenses  liberally  to  charitable  objects,  assists  his  friends  and  uses  his 
wealth  properly.  He  owns  his  money,  instead  of  letting  it  own  him.  He  has 
traveled  much,  observed  closely  and  profited  by  what  he  has  seen  and  read.  He 
is  verging  on  fourscore,  his  home  is  in  Philadelphia  and  "the  world  will  be  the 
better  for  his  having  lived  in  it." 

The  production  of  heavy-oil  in  1875  aggregated  one-hundred-and-thirty- 
thousand  barrels.  In  1877  it  dropped  to  eighty-eight-thousand  barrels  and  in 
1878  to  seventy  thousand.  Thirteen-hundred  wells  produced  sixty-thousand 
barrels  in  1883.  Taft  &  Payn's  pipe-line  was  laid  in  1870  from  the  Egbert  and 
Dewoody  tracts  to  the  river,  extended  to  Galloway  in  1872  and  combined  with 
the  Franklin  line  in  1878.  The  Producers'  Pipe-Line  Company  began  to  trans- 
port oil  in  1883.  J-  A.  Harris,  who  died  in  1894,  had  the  first  refinery  in  the  oil- 
regions  in  1860.  His  plant  was  extremely  primitive.  Colonel  J.  P.  Hoover 
built  the  first  refinery  of  note,  which  burned  in  the  autumn  of  1861.  Sims  & 
Whitney  had  one  in  1861  and  the  Norfolk  Oil-Works  were  established  the  same 
year,  below  the  Allegheny  bridge.  Samuel  Spencer,  of  Scranton,  expended 


THE   WORLDS  LUBRICANT.  85 

thirty-thousand  dollars  on  the  Keystone  Oil-Works,  near  the  cemetery,  in  1864. 
Nine  refineries,  most  of  them  running  the  lighter  oils,  were  operated  in  1864-5, 
after  which  the  business  collapsed  for  years.  Dr.  Tweddle,  a  Pittsburg  refiner 
who  had  suffered  by  fire,  organized  a  company  in  1872  to  start  the  Eclipse 
Works.  At  different  periods  many  of  the  local  operators  have  been  interested 
in  refining,  now  the  leading  Franklin  industry. 

For  some  time  heavy-oil  was  used  principally  in  its  natural  state.  At  length 
improvements  of  great  value  were  devised,  out  of  which  have  grown  the  oil- 
works  devoted  solely  to  the  manufacture  of  lubricants.  Among  these  the  most 
important  and  successful  was  that  adopted  in  1869  by  Charles  Miller,  of  Frank- 
lin, protected  by  letters-patent  of  the  United  States  and  since  by  patents  cover- 
ing his  complete  method.  Besides  improvements  in  the  method  of  manufactur- 
ing, he  discovered  the  value  of  Galena,  a  lead  oxide,  as  an  ingredient  in  lubri- 
cating oils  and  patented  the  process.  The  Great  Northern  Oil-Company  had 
built  a  refinery  in  1865  on  the  north  bank  of  French  Creek,  below  the  Evans 
Well,  and  leased  it  in  1868  to  Colonel  Street.  In  May  of  1869  Mr.  Miller  and 
John  Coon  purchased  the  Point  Lookout  Oil-Works,  as  the  refinery  was  called, 
Street  retiring.  The  total  tankage  was  one-thousand  barrels  and  the  daily  man- 
ufacturing capacity  scarcely  one-hundred.  The  new  firm,  of  which  R.  L.  Cochran 
became  a  member  in  July,  pushed  the  business  with  characteristic  energy,  doub- 
ling the  plant  and  extending  the  trade  in  all  directions.  Mr.  Cochran  withdrew 
in  January  of  1870,  R.  H.  Austin  buying  his  interest.  The  following  August  fire 
destroyed  the  works,  entailing  severe  loss.  A  calamity  that  would  have  dis- 
heartened most  men  seemed  only  to  imbue  the  partners  with  fresh  vigor.  Colonel 
Henry  B.  Plumer,  a  wealthy  citizen  of  Franklin,  entered  the  firm  and  the  Dale 
light-oil  refinery,  a  half-mile  up  the  creek,  was  bought  and  remodeled  through- 
out. Reorganized  on  a  solid  basis  as  the  "Galena  Oil-Works,"  a  name  des- 
tined to  gain  world-wide  reputation,  within  one  month  from  the  fire  the  new 
establishment,  its  buildings  and  entire  equipment  changed  and  adapted  to  the 
treatment  of  heavy-oil,  was  running  to  its  full  capacity  night  and  day  !  Such 
enterprise  and  pluck  augured  happily  for  the  future  and  they  have  been  rewarded 
abundantly. 

Orders  poured  in  more  rapidly  than  ever.  The  local  demand  spread  to  the 
adjoining  districts.  Customers  once  secured  were  sure  to  stay.  In  addition  to 
the  excellence  of  the  product,  there  was  a  vim  about  the  business  and  its  man- 
agement that  inspired  confidence  and  won  patronage.  Messrs.  Coon,  Austin 
and  Plumer  disposed  of  their  interest,  at  a  handsome  figure,  to  the  Standard  Oil 
Company  in  1878.  The  Galena  Oil-Works,  Limited,  was  chartered  and  con- 
tinued the  business,  with  Mr.  Miller  as  president.  Increasing  demands  necessi- 
tated frequent  enlargements  of  the  works,  which  now  occupy  five  acres  of  ground. 
Every  appliance  that  ingenuity  and  experience  can  suggest  has  been  provided, 
securing  uniform  grades  of  oil  with  unfailing  precision. 

The  machinery  and  appurtenances  are  the  best  money  and  skill  can  supply. 
The  same  sterling  traits  that  distinguished  the  smaller  firm  have  all  along  marked 
the  progress  of  the  newer  and  larger  enterprise.  The  standard  of  its  products 
is  always  strictly  first-class,  hence  patrons  are  never  disappointed  in  the  quality 
of  any  of  the  celebrated  Galena  brands  of  "Engine,"  "Coach,"  "Car,"  "Ma- 
chinery, "  or  "  Lubricating ' '  oils.  Steadfast  adherence  to  this  cardinal  principle 
has  borne  its  legitimate  fruit.  Railway  oils  are  manufactured  exclusively.  The 
daily  capacity  is  three-thousand  barrels.  "  Galena  Oils"  are  used  on  seventy- 
five per  cent,  of  the  railway  mileage  of  America  !  This  includes  three  distinct 


86  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

lines  from  Boston  and  New  York  to  the  Pacific  coast,  the  Northern  Pacific  to 
Puget  Sound,  the  Vanderbilt  system,  leading  roads  in  Mexico  and  dozens  of 
others.  Such  patronage  has  never  before  been  gained  by  one  establishment 
and  it  is  the  result  of  positive  merit.  The  Franklin  district  furnishes  more  and 
better  lubricating  oil  than  all  the  rest  of  the  continent  and  the  Galena  treatment 
brings  it  to  the  highest  measure  of  perfection.  Reflect  for  a  moment  upon  the 
enormous  expansion  of  the  Galena  Works  and  see  what  earnest,  faithful,  in- 
telligent effort  and  straightforward  dealing  may  accomplish. 

The  first  three  railroads  that  tried  the  "Galena  Oils"  in  1869  have  used 
none  other  since.  Could  stronger  proof  of  their  excellence  be  desired  ?  It  was 
a  pleasing  novelty  for  railway  managers  to  find  a  lubricant  that  would  neither 
freeze  in  winter  nor  dissipate  in  summer  and  they  made  haste  to  profit  by  the 
experience.  The  severest  tests  served  but  to  place  it  far  beyond  all  competition. 
At  twenty  degrees  below  zero  it  would  not  congeal,  while  the  fiercest  heat  of  the 
tropical  sun  affected  it  hardly  a  particle.  As  the  natural  consequence  it  speed- 
ily superseded  all  others  on  the  principal  railroads  of  the  country.  The  axles  of 
the  magnificent  Pullman  and  Wagner  coaches  on  the  leading  lines  have  their 
friction  reduced  to  the  minimum  by  "  Galena  Oil."  It  adds  immeasurably  to 
the  smoothness  and  speed  of  railway  travel  between  the  Atlantic  and  the  Pacific, 
from  Maine  to  the  Isthmus,  from  British  Columbia  to  Florida.  Passengers  de- 
tained by  a  "hot  box  "  and  annoyed  by  the  fumes  of  rancid  grease  frying  in  the 
trucks  beneath  their  feet  may  be  certain  that  the  offending  railways  do  not  use 
"Galena  Oil."  The  "Galena"  is  not  constructed  on  that  plan,  but  stands 
alone  and  unapproachable  as  the  finest  lubricator  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

This  is  a  record-breaking  age.  The  world's  record  for  fast  time  on  a  rail- 
road was  again  captured  from  the  English  on  September  eleventh,  1895.  The 
New- York-Central  train,  which  left  New  York  that  morning,  accomplished  the 
trip  to  Buffalo  at  the  greatest  speed  for  a  continuous  journey  of  any  train  over 
any  railroad  in  the  world.  The  distance — four-hundred-and-thirty-six  miles — 
was  covered  in  four-hundred-and-seven  minutes,  a  rate  of  sixty-four-and-one- 
third  miles  per  hour.  Until  that  feat  the  English  record  of  sixty-three-and-one- 
fifth  miles  an  hour  for  five-hundred  miles  was  the  fastest.  In  other  words,  the 
American  train  of  four  heavy  cars,  hauled  to  Albany  by  engine  No.  999,  the 
famous  World's  Fair  locomotive,  smashed  the  English  record  more  than  a  mile 
an  hour,  in  the  teeth  of  a  stiff  head-wind.  Father  Time,  who  has  insisted  for 
many  years  that  travelers  spend  at  least  twenty-four  hours  on  the  journey  be- 
tween Chicago  and  New  York,  received  a  fatal  shock  on  October  twenty-fourth, 
1895.  Two  men  who  left  Chicago  at  three-thirty  in  the  morning  visited  five 
theatres  in  New  York  that  night !  A  special  New- York-Central  train,  with  Vice- 
President  Webb  and  a  small  party  of  Lake-Shore  officials,  ran  the  nine-hundred- 
and-eighty  miles  in  seventeen-and-three-quarter  hours,  averaging  sixty-five  miles 
an  hour  to  Buffalo,  beating  all  previous  long-distance  runs.  For  the  first  time 
copies  of  Chicago  newspapers,  brought  by  gentlemen  on  the  train,  were  seen  in 
New  York  on  the  day  of  their  publication.  Every  axle,  every  journal,  every 
box,  every  wheel  of  both  these  trains,  from  the  front  of  the  locomotive  to  the 
rear  of  the  hind-coach,  was  lubricated  with  "  Galena  Oil." 

The  works  are  situated  in  the  very  heart  of  the  heavy-oil  district.  Two 
railroads,  with  a  third  in  prospect,  and  a  paved  street  front  the  spacious  premi- 
ses. The  main  building  is  of  brick,  covering  about  an  acre  and  devoted  chiefly 
to  the  handling  of  oil  for  manufacture  or  in  course  of  preparation,  the  repairing 
and  painting  of  barrels  and  the  accommodation  of  the  engines  and  machinery. 


THE  WORLD'S  LUBRICANT.  87 

To  the  rear  stands  a  substantial  brick-structure,  containing  the  steam-boilers,  the 
electric-light  outfit  and  the  huge  agitators  in  which  the  oil  is  treated.  Big  pumps 
next  force  the  fluid  into  large  vessels,  where  it  is  submitted  to  a  variety  of  spe- 
cial processes,  which  finally  leave  it  ready  for  the  consumer.  A  dozen  iron-tanks, 
each  holding  many  thousand  barrels,  receive  and  store  crude  to  supply  the  works 
for  months.  As  this  is  piped  directly  from  the  wells  the  largest  orders  are  filled 
with  the  utmost  dispatch.  Nothing  is  lacking  that  can  ensure  superiority.  The 
highest  wages  are  paid  and  every  employee  is  an  American  citizen  or  proposes 
to  become  one.  The  men  are  regarded  as  rational,  responsible  beings,  with 
souls  to  save  and  bodies  to  nourish,  and  treated  in  accordance  with  the  Golden 
Rule.  They  are  well-fed,  well-housed,  prosperous  and  contented.  A  strike,  or 
a  demand  for  higher  wages  or  shorter  hours,  is  unknown  in  the  history  of  this 
model  institution.  Is  it  surprising  that  each  year  adds  to  its  vast  trade  and 
wonderful  popularity  ?  The  "Galena  Oil-Works,  Limited,"  of  Franklin,  Ve- 
nango  county,  Pennsylvania,  must  be  ranked  among  the  most  noteworthy  rep- 
resentative industries  of  Uncle  Sam's  splendid  domain. 

Have  you  a  somewhat  cranky  wife, 

Whose  temper's  apt  to  broil  ? 
To  ease  the  matrimonial  strife 
Just  lubricate  when  trouble's  rife — 

Pour  on  Galena  Oil ! 

Has  life  some  rusty  hinge  or  joint 

That  vexes  like  a  boil, 
And  always  sure  to  disappoint  ? 
The  hindrance  to  success  anoint 

As  with  Galena  Oil ! 

Does  business  seem  to  jar  and  creak, 

Despite  long  years  of  toil, 
Till  wasted  strength  has  left  you  weak  ? 
Reduce  the  friction,  so  to  speak — 

Apply  Galena  Oil ! 

Are  your  affairs  all  run  aground, 

The  cause  of  sad  turmoil  ? 
To  see  again  "  the  wheels  go  "wound," 
Smooth  the  rough  spots  wherever  found — 

Soak  in  Galena  Oil ! 

The  Signal  Oil-Works,  Limited,  manufacture  Sibley's  Perfection  Valve-Oil 
for  locomotive-cylinders  and  Perfection  Signal  Oil.  More  than  twenty-five  years 
ago  Joseph  C.  Sibley  commenced  experimenting  with  petroleum-oils  for  use  in 
steam-cylinders  under  high  pressure.  He  found  that  where  the  boiler-pressure 
was  not  in  excess  of  sixty  pounds  the  proper  lubrication  of  a  steam-cylinder 
with  petroleum  was  a  matter  of  little  or  no  difficulty.  With  increase  in  pressure 
came  increase  in  temperature.  As  a  result  the  oil  vaporized  and  passed  through 
the  exhaust.  The  destruction  of  steam-chests  and  cylinders  through  fatty  acids 
incident  to  tallow,  or  tallow  and  lard-oils,  cost  millions  of  dollars  annually ;  but 
it  was  held  as  a  cardinal  point  in  mechanical  engineering  that  these  were  the 
only  proper  steam-lubricants.  Mr.  Sibley  carried  on  his  experiments  for  years. 
He  conversed  with  leading  superintendents-of-machinery  in  the  United  States 
and  with  leading  chemists.  Almost  invariably  he  was  laughed  at  when  assert- 
ing his  determination  to  produce  a  product  of  petroleum,  free  from  fatty  acids, 
capable  of  better  lubrication  even  than  the  tallow  then  in  use.  Many  of  his 
friends  in  the  oil-business,  who  thought  they  understood  the  nature  of  petro- 
leum, expressed  the  deepest  sympathy  for  Mr.  Sibley's  hallucination.  Amid 


88  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

partial  successes,  interspersed  with  many  failures,  he  continued  the  experiments. 
So  incredulous  were  chemists  and  superintendents-of-machinery,  so  fearful  of 
disasters  to  their  machinery  through  the  use  of  such  a  compound,  that  he  had  in 
many  instances  to  guarantee  to  assume  any  damages  which  might  occur  to  a 
locomotive  through  its  use.  He  rode  thousands  of  miles  upon  locomotives, 
watching  the  use  of  the  oil,  daily  doubling  the  distance  made  by  engineers. 
Success  at  last  crowned  his  efforts  and  the  Perfection  Valve-Oil  has  been  for 
nearly  twenty  years  the  standard  lubricant  of  valves  and  cylinders.  To-day 
there  is  scarcely  a  locomotive  in  the  United  States  that  does  not  use  some  prep- 
aration of  petroleum  and  the  steam-chests  and  cylinders  of  more  than  three- 
fourths  of  the  locomotives  in  the  United  States  are  lubricated  with  Perfection 
Valve-Oil. 

The  results  have  been  astounding.  Destruction  of  steam-joints  by  fatty 
acids  from  valve-lubricants  is  now  an  unknown  thing.  Not  only  this,  but  as  a 
lubricant  the  Perfection  Valve-Oil  has  proved  itself  so  much  superior  that, 
where  valve-seats  required  facing  on  an  average  once  in  sixty  days,  they  do  not 
now  require  facing  on  an  average  once  in  two  years.  The  steam-pressure  car- 
ried upon  the  boilers  at  that  time  rarely  exceeded  one-hundred-and-twenty 
pounds.  With  the  increase  of  pressure  and  the  corresponding  increase  of  tem- 
perature it  was  found  next  to  impossible  to  properly  lubricate  the  valves  and 
cylinders  to  prevent  cutting.  The  superintendent-of-machinery  of  a  leading 
American  railway  sent  for  Mr.  Sibley  at  one  time,  told  him  that  he  proposed  to 
build  passenger-locomotives  carrying  one-hundred-and-eighty  pounds  pressure 
and  asked  if  he  would  undertake  to  lubricate  the  valves  and  cylinders  under 
that  pressure.  The  reply  was  :  "Go  ahead.  We  will  guarantee  pertect  lubrica- 
tion to  a  pressure  very  much  higher  than  that."  And  to-day  the  majority  of 
the  higher  type  of  passenger-locomotives  carry  one-hundred-and-eighty  pounds 
pressure  regularly. 

When  it  was  clearly  demonstrated  that  the  Perfection  Valve-Oil  was  a  suc- 
cess, oil-men  who  had  pronounced  it  impossible  and  had  been  backed  i:i  their 
opinion  by  noted  chemists  commenced  to  make  oils  similar  to  it  in  appearance. 
While  many  of  them  may  have  much  confidence  in  their  own  product,  the 
highest  testimonial  ever  paid  to  Perfection  Valve-Oil  is  that  no  competitor 
claims  he  has  its  superior.  Some  urge  their  product  with  the  assurance  that  it 
is  the  equal  of  Perfection  Valve-Oil,  thus  unconsciously  paying  the  highest  trib- 
ute possible  to  the  latter. 

The  works  also  make  Perfection  Signal-Oil  for  use  in  railway-lamps  and 
lanterns.  Since  1869  this  oil  has  been  before  the  public.  It  is  in  daily  use  in 
more  than  three-fourths  of  the  railway-lanterns  of  the  United  States  and  it  is 
the  proud  boast  of  Mr.  Sibley  that,  during  that  time,  there  has  never  occurred 
an  accident  which  has  cost  either  a  human  limb  or  life  or  the  destruction  of  one 
penny's  worth  of  property,  through  the  failure  of  this  oil  to  perform  its  work  per- 
fectly. Making  but  the  two  products,  Valve  and  Signal-Oils,  catering  to  no  other 
than  railroad-trade,  studying  carefully  the  demands  of  the  service,  keeping  in 
touch  with  the  latest  developments  of  locomotive-engineering  and  thoroughly 
acquainted  with  the  properties  of  all  petroleum  in  Pennsylvania,  the  company 
may  well  believe  that,  granted  the  possession  of  equal  natural  abilities  with 
competitors,  under  the  circumstances  it  is  entitled  to  lead  all  others  in  the  pro- 
duction of  these  two  grades  of  oils  for  railroad  use. 

Hon.  Charles  Miller,  president  of  the  Galena  Oil-Works,  and  Hon.  Joseph 
C.  Sibley,  president  of  the  Signal  Oil-Works,  are  brothers-in-law  and  proprietors 


THE  WORLD'S  LUBRICANT. 


89 


of  the  great  stock-farms  of  Miller  &  Sibley.  Mr.  Miller  is  of  Huguenot  ancestry, 
born  in  Alsace,  France,  in  1843.  The  family  came  to  this  country  in  1854,  set- 
tling on  a  farm  near  Boston,  Erie  county,  New  York.  At  thirteen  Charles  clerked 
one  year  in  the  village-store  for  thirty-five  dollars  and  board.  He  clerked  in 
Buffalo  at  seventeen  for  one-hundred-and-seventy-five  dollars,  without  board.  In 
1861  he  enlisted  in  the  New- York  National  Guard.  In  1863  he  was  mustered  into 
the  United  States  service  and  married  at  Springville,  N.  Y.,  to  Miss  Ann  Adelaide 
Sibley,  eldest  child  of  Dr.  Joseph  C.  Sibley.  In  1864  he  commenced  business 
for  himself,  in  the  store  in  which  he  had  first  clerked,  with  his  own  savings  of 
two-hundred  dollars  and  a  loan  of  two-thousand  from  Dr.  Sibley.  In  1866  he 
sold  the  store  and  removed  to  Franklin.  Forming  a  partnership  with  John 


Coon  of  Buffalo,  the  firm  carried  on  a  large  dry-goods  house  until  1869,  when  a 
patent  for  lubricating  oil  and  a  refinery  were  purchased  and  the  store  was  closed 
out  at  heavy  loss.  The  refinery  burned  down  the  next  year,  new  partners  were 
taken  in  and  in  1878  the  business  was  organized  in  its  present  form  as  "The 
Galena  Oil-Works,  Limited."  The  entire  management  was  given  Mr.  Miller, 
who  had  built  up  an  immense  trade  and  retained  his  interest  in  the  works.  He 
deals  directly  with  consumers.  Since  1870  his  business-trips  have  averaged  five 
days  a  week  and  fifty-thousand  miles  a  year  of  travel.  No  man  has  a  wider 
acquaintance  and  more  personal  friends  among  railroad  officials.  His  journeys 
cover  the  United  States  and  Mexico.  Wherever  he  may  be,  in  New  Orleans  or 
San  Francisco,  on  the  train  or  in  the  hotel,  conferring  with  a  Vanderbilt  or  the 
humblest  manager  of  an  obscure  road,  receiving  huge  orders  or  aiding  a  deserv- 


90  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

ing  cause,  he  is  always  the  same  genial,  magnetic,  generous  exemplar  of  practi- 
cal belief  in  "the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of  man." 

Major  Miller  is  one  whom  money  does  not  spoil.  He  is  the  master,  not  the 
servant,  of  his  wealth.  He  uses  it  to  extend  business,  to  foster  enterprise,  to 
further  philanthropy,  to  alleviate  distress  and  to  promote  the  comfort  and  happi- 
ness of  all  about  him.  His  benefactions  keep  pace  with  his  increasing  pros- 
perity. He  is  ever  foremost  in  good  deeds.  He  gives  thousands  of  dollars 
yearly  to  worthy  objects,  to  the  needy,  to  churches,  to  schools,  to  missions  and 
to  advance  the  general  welfare.  In  1889  he  established  a  free  night-school  for 
his  employes  and  the  youth  of  Franklin,  furnishing  spacious  rooms  with  desks 
and  apparatus  and  engaging  four  capable  teachers.  This  school  has  trained 
hundreds  of  young  men  for  positions  as  accountants,  book-keepers,  stenogra- 
phers and  clerks.  The  First  Baptist  church,  which  he  assisted  in  organizing,  is 
the  object  of  his  special  regard.  He  bore  a  large  share  of  the  cost  of  the  brick- 
edifice,  the  lecture-room  and  the  parsonage.  He  and  Mr.  Sibley  have  donated 
the  massive  pipe-organ,  maintained  the  superb  choir,  paid  a  good  part  of  the 
pastor's  salary,  erected  a  branch-church  and  supported  the  only  services  in  the 
Third  Ward.  For  twenty-five  years  Mr.  Miller  has  been  superintendent  of  the 
Sabbath-school,  which  has  grown  to  a  membership  of  six-hundred.  His  Bible- 
class  of  three-hundred  men  is  equalled  in  the  state  only  by  John  Wanamaker's, 
in  Philadelphia,  and  James  McCormick's,  in  Harrisburg.  The  instruction  is 
scriptural,  pointed  and  business-like,  with  no  taint  of  bigotry  or  sectarianism- 
No  matter  how  far  away  Saturday  may  find  him,  the  faithful  teacher  never  misses 
the  class  that  is  "the  apple  of  his  eye,"  if  it  be  possible  to  reach  home.  Often 
he  has  hired  an  engine  to  bring  him  through  on  Saturday  night,  in  order  to  meet 
the  adult  pupils  of  all  denominations  who  flock  to  hear  his  words  of  wisdom  and 
encouragement.  Alike  in  conversation,  teaching  and  public-speaking  he  pos- 
sesses the  faculty  of  interesting  his  listeners  and  imparting  something  new.  He 
has  raised  the  fallen,  picked  poor  fellows  out  of  the  gutter,  rescued  the  perishing 
and  set  many  wanderers  in  the  straight  path.  Not  a  few  souls,  ' '  plucked  as 
brands  from  the  burning, "  owe  their  salvation  to  the  kindly  sympathy  and  assist- 
ance of  this  earnest  layman.  Eternity  alone  will  reveal  the  incalculable  benefit 
of  his  night-school,  his  Bible-class,  his  church-work,  his  acts  of  charity,  his 
personal  appeals  to  the  erring  and  his  unselfish  life  to  the  community  and  the 
world. 

Twice  Mr.  Miller  served  as  mayor  of  Franklin.  Repeatedly  has  he  declined 
nominations  to  high  offices,  private  affairs  demanding  his  time  and  attention. 
He  is  president  or  director  of  a  score  of  commercial  and  industrial  companies, 
with  factories,  mines  and  works  in  eight  states.  He  has  been  president  time 
after  time  of  the  Northwestern  Association  of  Pennsylvania  of  the  Grand  Army 
of  the  Republic,  Ordnance-Officer  and  Assistant  Adjutant-General  of  the  Second 
Brigade  of  Pennsylvania  and  Commander  of  Mays  Post.  He  is  a  leading  spirit 
in  local  enterprises.  He  enjoys  his  beautiful  home  and  the  society  of  his  wife 
and  children  and  friends.  He  prizes  good  horses,  smokes  good  cigars  and  tells 
good  stories.  In  him  the  wage-earner  and  the  breadwinner  have  a  steadfast 
helper,  willing  to  lighten  their  burden  and  to  better  their  condition.  In  short, 
Charles  Miller  is  a  typical  American,  plucky,  progressive,  energetic  and  invinci- 
ble, with  a  heart  to  feel  for  suffering  humanity,  genius  to  plan  and  talent  to 
execute  the  noblest  designs. 

Hon.  Joseph  Crocker  Sibley,  eldest  son  of  Dr.  Joseph  Crocker  Sibley,  was 
born  at  Friendship,  N.  Y.,  in  1850.  His  father's  death  obliging  him  to  give  up 


THE  WORLD'S  LUBRICANT.  91 

a  college-course  for  which  he  had  prepared,  in  1866  he  came  to  Franklin  to  clerk 
in  Miller  &  Coon's  dry-goods  store.  From  that  time  his  business  interests  and 
Mr.  Miller's  were  closely  allied.  In  1870  he  married  Miss  Metta  E.  Babcock, 
daughter  of  Simon  M.  Babcock,  of  Friendship.  He  was  agent  of  the  Galena 
Oil-Works  at  Chicago  for  two  years,  losing  his  effects  and  nearly  losing  his  life  in 
the  terrible  fire  that  devastated  that  city.  His  business-success  may  be  said  to 
date  from  1873,  when  he  returned  to  Franklin.  After  many  experiments  he 
produced  a  signal-oil  superior  in  light,  safety  and  cold-test  to  any  in  use.  The 
Signal  Oil-Works  were  established,  with  Mr.  Sibley  as  president  and  the  pro- 
prietors of  the  Galena  Oil-Works,  whose  plant  manufactured  the  new  product, 
as  partners.  Next  he  compounded  a  valve-oil  for  locomotives,  free  from  the 
bad  qualities  of  animal-oils,  which  is  now  used  on  three-fourths  of  the  railway 
mileage  of  the  United  States. 

Every  newspaper-reader  in  the  land  has  heard  of  the  remarkable  Congres- 
sional fight  of  1892  in  the  Erie-Crawford  district.  Both  counties  were  over- 
whelmingly Republican.  People  learned  with  surprise  that  Hon.  Joseph  C. 
Sibley,  a  resident  of  another  district,  had  accepted  the  invitation  of  a  host  of 
good  citizens,  by  whom  he  was  selected  as  the  only  man  who  could  lead  them 
to  victory  over  the  ring,  to  try  conclusions  with  the  nominee  of  the  ruling  party, 
who  had  stacks  of  money,  the  entire  machine,  extensive  social  connections, 
religious  associations — he  was  a  preacher — and  a  regular  majority  of  five-thou- 
sand to  bank  upon.  Some  wiseacres  shook  their  heads  gravely  and  predicted 
disaster.  Such  persons  understood  neither  the  resistless  force  of  quickened 
public  sentiment  nor  the  sterling  qualities  of  the  candidate  from  Venango  coun- 
ty. Democrats,  Populists  and  Prohibitionists  endorsed  Sibley.  He  conducted 
a  campaign  worthy  of  Henry  Clay.  Multitudes  crowded  to  hear  and  see  a  man 
candid  enough  to  deliver  his  honest  opinions  with  the  boldness  of  "Old  Hick- 
ory." The  masses  knew  of  Mr.  Sibley's  courage,  sagacity  and  success  in  busi- 
ness, but  they  were  unprepared  to  find  so  sturdy  a  defender  of  their  rights.  His 
manly  independence,  ringing  denunciations  of  wrong,  grand  simplicity  and  inci- 
sive logic  aroused  unbounded  enthusiasm.  The  tide  in  favor  of  the  fearless 
advocate  of  fair-play  for  the  lowliest  creature  no  earthly  power  could  stem. 
His  opponent  was  buried  out  of  sight  and  Sibley  was  elected  by  a  sweeping 
majority. 

Mr.  Sibley's  course  in  Congress  amply  met  the  expectations  of  his  most  ar- 
dent supporters.  The  prestige  of  his  great  victory,  added  to  his  personal  mag- 
netism and  rare  geniality,  at  the  very  outset  gave  him  a  measure  of  influence  few 
members  ever  attain.  During  the  extra-session  he  expressed  his  views  with 
characteristic  vigor.  A  natural  leader,  close  student  and  keen  observer,  he  did 
not  wait  for  somebody  to  give  him  the  cue  before  putting  his  ideas  on  record. 
In  the  silver-discussion  he  bore  a  prominent  part,  opposing  resolutely  the  repeal 
of  the  Sherman  act.  His  wonderful  speech  "  set  the  ball  rolling  "  for  those  who 
declined  to  follow  the  administration  program.  The  House  was  electrified  by 
Sibley's  effort.  Throughout  his  speech  of  three  hours  he  was  honored  with  the 
largest  Congressional  audience  of  the  decade.  Aisles,  halls,  galleries  and  cor- 
ridors were  densely  packed.  Senators  came  from  the  other  end  of  the  Capitol 
to  listen  to  the  brave  Pennsylvanian  who  dared  plead  for  the  white  metal.  For 
many  years  Mr.  Sibley  has  been  a  close  student  of  political  and  social  econom- 
ics and  he  so  grouped  his  facts  as  to  command  the  undivided  attention  and  the 
highest  respect  of  those  who  honestly  differed  from  him  in  his  conclusions.  Sat- 
ire, pathos,  bright  wit  and  pungent  repartee  awoke  in  his  hearers  the  strongest 


92  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

emotions,  entrancing  the  bimetalists  and  giving  their  enemies  a  cold  chill,  as  the 
stream  of  eloquence  flowed  from  lips  "  untrained  to  flatter,  to  dissemble  or  to 
play  the  hypocrite."  Thenceforth  the  position  of  the  representative  of  the 
Twenty-sixth  district  was  assured,  despite  the  assaults  of  hireling  journals  and 
discomfited  worshippers  of  the  golden  calf. 

He  took  advanced  ground  on  the  Chinese  question,  delivering  a  speech 
replete  with  patriotism  and  common-sense.  An  American  by  birth,  habit  and 
education,  he  prefers  his  own  country  to  any  other  under  the  blue  vault  of 
heaven.  The  American  workman  he  would  protect  from  pauper  immigration 
and  refuse  to  put  on  the  European  or  Asiatic  level.  He  stands  up  for  American 
skill,  American  ingenuity,  American  labor  and  American  wages.  Tariff  for 
revenue  he  approves  of,  not  a  tariff  to  diminish  revenue  or  to  enrich  one  class  at 
the  expense  of  all.  The  tiller  of  the  soil,  the  mechanic,  the  coal-miner,  the  coke- 
burner  and  the  day-laborer  have  found  him  an  outspoken  champion  of  their 
cause.  Small  wonder  is  it  that  good  men  and  women  of  all  creeds  and  parties 
have  abiding  faith  in  Joseph  C.  Sibley  and  would  fain  bestow  on  him  the  nighest 
office  in  the  nation's  gift. 

Human  nature  is  a  queer  medley  and  sometimes  manifests  streaks  of  envy 
and  meanness  in  queer  ways.  Mr.  Sibley's  motives  have  been  impugned,  his 
efforts  belittled,  his  methods  assailed  and  his  neckties  criticised  by  men  who 
could  not  understand  his  lofty  character  and  purposes.  The  generous  ex-Con- 
gressman must  plead  guilty  to  the  charge  of  wearing  clothes  that  fit  him,  of 
smoking  decent  cigars,  of  driving  fine  horses  and  of  living  comfortably.  Of 
course  it  would  be  cheaper  to  buy  hand-me-down  misfits,  to  indulge  in  loud- 
smelling  tobies,  to  walk  or  ride  muleback,  to  curry  his  own  horses  and  let  his 
wife  do  the  washing  instead  of  hiring  competent  helpers.  But  he  goes  right 
ahead  increasing  his  business,  improving  his  farms,  developing  American  trotters 
and  furnishing  work  at  the  highest  wages  to  willing  hands  in  his  factories,  at  his 
oil-wells,  on  his  lands,  in  his  barns  and  his  hospitable  home.  He  dispenses  large 
sums  in  charity.  His  benevolence  and  enterprise  reach  far  beyond  Pennsylvania. 
He  does  not  hoard  up  money  to  loan  it  at  exorbitant  rates.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
from  the  hundreds  of  men  he  has  helped  pecuniarily  he  never  accepted  one 
penny  of  interest.  He  has  been  mayor  of  Franklin,  president  of  the  Pennsyl- 
vania State-Dairymen's  Association,  director  of  the  American  Jersey-Cattle 
Club  and  member  of  the  State  Board  of  Agriculture.  He  is  a  brilliant  talker, 
a  profound  thinker,  a  capital  story-teller  and  a  loyal  friend.  "  May  he  live  long 
and  prosper  !" 

Miller  &  Sibley's  Prospect-Hill  Stock-Farm  is  one  of  the  largest,  best  equip- 
ped and  most  favorably  known  in  the  world.  Different  farms  comprising  the 
establishment  include  a  thousand  acres  of  land  adjacent  to  Franklin  and  a  farm, 
with  stabling  for  two-hundred  horses  and  the  finest  kite-track  in  the  United 
States,  at  Meadville.  On  one  of  these  farms  is  the  first  silo  built  west  of  the 
Allegheny  mountains.  Trotting  stock,  Jersey  cattle,  Shetland  ponies  and  Angora 
goats  of  the  highest  grades  are  bred.  For  Michael  Angelo,  when  a  calf  six 
weeks  old,  twelve-thousand-five-hundred  dollars  in  cash  were  paid  A.  B.  Dar- 
ling, proprietor  of  the  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel,  New  York  City.  Animals  of  the  best 
strain  were  purchased,  regardless  of  cost.  In  1886  Mr.  Sibley  bought  from 
Senator  Leland  Stanford,  of  California,  for  ten-thousand  dollars,  the  four-year- 
old  trotting-stallion  St.  Bel.  Seventy-five  thousand  were  offered  for  him  a  few 
weeks  before  the  famous  sire  of  numerous  prize-winners  died.  Cows  that  have 
broken  all  records  for  milk  and  butter  and  horses  that  have  won  the  biggest 


THE   WORLD'S  LUBRICANT.  93 

purses  on  the  leading  race-tracks  of  the  country  are  the  results  of  the  liberal 
policy  pursued  at  Prospect-Hill.  Charles  Marvin,  the  prince  of  horsemen, 
superintends  the  trotting  department  and  E.  H.  Sibley  is  manager  of  all  the 
Miller  &  Sibley  interests.  Hundreds  of  the  choicest  animals  are  raised  every 
year.  Prospect-Hill  Farm  is  one  of  the  sights  of  Franklin  and  the  enterprise 
represents  an  investment  not  far  short  of  one-million  dollars.  Wouldn't  men 
like  Charles  Miller  and  Joseph  C.  Sibley  sweep  away  the  cobwebs,  give  business 
an  impetus  and  infuse  new  life  and  new  ideas  into  any  community  ? 

Franklin  had  tallied  one  for  heavy  oil,  but  its  resources  were  not  exhausted. 
On  October  seventeenth,  1859,  Colonel  James  P.  Hoover,  C.  M.  Hoover  and 
Vance  Stewart  began  to  drill  on  the  Robert-Brandon — now  the  Hoover — farm 
of  three-hundred  acres,  in  Sandycreek  township,  on  the  west  bank  of  the  Alle- 
gheny river,  three  miles  south  of  Franklin.  They  found  oil  on  December 
twenty-first,  the  well  yielding  one-hundred  barrels  a  day  !  This  pretty  Christmas 
gift  was  another  surprise.  Owing  to  its  distance  from  "  springs  "  and  the  two 
wells — Drake  and  Evans — already  producing,  the  stay-in-the-rut  element  felt 
confident  that  the  Hoover  Well  would  not  "  amount  to  a  hill  of  beans."  It  was 
'' piling  Ossa  on  Pelion  "  for  the  well  to  produce,  from  the  second  sand,  oil 
with  properties  adapted  to  illumination  and  lubrication.  The  Drake  was  for 
light,  the  Evans  for  grease  and  the  Hoover  combined  the  two  in  part.  Where 
and  when  was  this  variegated  dissimilarity  to  cease  ?  Perhaps  its  latest  phase  is 
to  come  shortly.  Henry  F.  James  is  beginning  a  well  south-west  of  town,  on  the 
N.  B.  Myers  tract,  between  a  sweet  and  a  sour  spring.  Savans,  scientists,  beer- 
drinkers,  tee-totalers  and  oil-operators  are  on  the  ragged  edge  of  suspense, 
some  hoping,  some  fearing,  some  praying  that  James  may  tap  a  perennial  fount 
of  creamy  'alf-and-'alf. 

Once  at  a  drilling-well  on  the  "  Point"  the  tools  dropped  suddenly.  The 
driller  relieved  the  tension  on  his  rope  and  let  the  tools  down  slowly.  They 
descended  six  or  eight  feet !  The  bare  thought  of  a  crevice  of  such  dimensions 
paralyzed  the  knight  of  the  temper-screw,  all  the  more  that  the  hole  was  not  to 
the  first  sand.  What  a  lake  of  oil  must  underlie  that  derrick  !  He  drew  up  the 
tools.  They  were  dripping  amber  fluid,  which  had  a  flavor  quite  unlike  petro- 
leum. Did  his  nose  deceive  him  ?  It  was  the  aroma  of  beer  !  A  lick  of  the 
stuff  confirmed  the  nasal  diagnosis — it  had  the  taste  .of  beer  !  The  alarm  was 
sounded  and  the  sand-pump  run  down.  It  came  up  brimming  over  with  beer ! 
Ten  times  the  trip  was  repeated  with  the  same  result.  Think  of  an  ocean  of  the 
delicious,  foamy,  appetizing  German  beverage  !  Word  was  sent  to  the  owners 
of  the  well,  who  ordered  the  tubing  to  be  put  in.  They  tried  to  figure  how 
many  breweries  the  production  of  their  well  would  retire.  Pumping  was  about 
to  begin,  in  presence  of  a  party  of  impatient,  thirsty  spectators,  when  an  excited 
Teuton,  blowing  and  puffing,  was  seen  approaching  at  a  breakneck  pace. 
Evidently  he  had  something  on  his  mind.  "Gott  in  Himmel !  "  he  shrieked, 
"you  vas  proke  mit  Grossman's  vault !  "  The  mystery  was  quickly  explained. 
Philip  Grossman,  the  brewer,  had  cut  a  tunnel  a  hundred  feet  into  the  hill-side 
to  store  his  liquid-stock  in  a  cool  place.  The  well  chanced  to  be  squarely  over 
this  tunnel,  the  roof  of  which  the  tools  pierced  and  stove  in  the  head  of  a  tun  of 
beer  !  Workmen  who  came  for  a  load  were  astonished  to  discover  one  end  of 
a  string  of  tubing  dangling  in  the  tun.  It  dawned  upon  them  that  the  drillers 
three-hundred  feet  above  must  have  imagined  they  struck  a  crevice  and  a  mes- 
senger speeded  to  the  well.  The  saddened  crowd  slinked  off,  muttering  words 
that  would  not  look  nice  in  print.  The  tubing  was  withdrawn,  the  hogshead 


94  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE- OIL. 

was  shoved  aside,  the  tools  were  again  swung  and  two  weeks  later  the  well  was 
pumping  thirty  barrels  a  day  of  unmistakable  heavy-oil. 

The  Hoover  strike  fed  the  flame  the  Evans  Well  had  kindled.  Lands  in  the 
neighborhood  were  in  demand  on  any  terms  the  owners  might  impose.  From 
Franklin  to  the  new  well,  on  both  sides  of  the  Allegheny,  was  the  favorite 
choice,  on  a  theory  that  a  pool  connected  the  deposits.  Leases  were  snapped  up 
at  one-half  royalty  and  a  cash-bonus.  Additional  wells  on  the  Hoover  rivaled 
No.  i,  which  produced  gamely  for  four  years.  The  tools  were  stuck  in  cleaning  it 
out  and  a  new  well  beside  it  started  at  sixty  barrels.  The  "Big-Emma  Vein " 
was  really  an  artery  to  which  for  years  "whoa,  Emma  !"  did  not  apply.  Bissell 
&  Co.  and  the  Cameron  Petroleum  Company  secured  control  of  the  property,  on 
which  fifteen  wells  were  producing  two-hundred  barrels  ten  years  from  the  ad- 
vent of  the  Hoover  &  Vance.  Harry  Smith,  a  city-father,  is  operating  on  the 
tract  and  drilling  paying  wells  at  reasonable  intervals.  Colonel  James  P.  Hoover 
died  on  February  fourth,  1871,  aged  sixty-nine.  Born  in  Centre  county,  he  set- 
tled in  the  southern  part  of  Clarion,  was  appointed  by  Governor  Porter  in  1839 
Prothonotary  of  Venango  county  and  removed  to  Franklin.  The  people  elected 
him  to  the  same  office  for  three  years  and  State  Senator  in  1844.  The  Canal- 
Commissioners  in  1851  appointed  him  collector  of  the  tolls  at  Hollidaysburg, 
Blair  county,  for  five  years.  He  filled  these  positions  efficiently,  strict  adherence 
to  principle  and  a  high  sense  of  duty  marking  his  whole  career.  The  esteem 
and  confidence  he  enjoyed  all  through  his  useful  life  were  attested  by  universal 
regret  at  his  death  and  the  largest  funeral  ever 
\vitnessed  in  Franklin.  His  estimable  widow  sur- 
vived Colonel  Hoover  twenty  years,  dying  at  the 
residence  of  her  son-in-law,  Arnold  Plumer,  in 
Minnesota.  Their  son,  C.  M.  Hoover,  ex-sheriff 
of  the  county,  is  now  interested  in  the  street  rail- 
way. Vance  Stewart,  who  owned  the  farm  near 
the  lower  river-bridge,  removed  to  Greenville 
and  preceded  his  wife  and  several  children,  one 
of  them  Rev.  Orlando  V.  Stewart,  to  the  tomb. 
Another  son,  James  Stewart,  was  a  prominent 
member  of  the  Erie  bar. 

The  opening  months  of  1860  were  decidedly 
lively  on  the  Cochran  Farm,  in  Cranberry  town- 
ship, opposite  the  Hoover.  The  first  well,  the 
Keystone,  on  the  flats  above  where  the  station 
now  stands,  was  a  second-sander  of  the  hun- 
dred-barrel class.  The  first  oil  sold  for  fourteen  dollars  a  barrel,  at  which  rate 
land-owners  and  operators  were  not  in  danger  of  bankruptcy  or  the  poor-house. 
Fourteen-hundred  dollars  a  day  from  a  three-inch  hole  would  have  seemed  too 
preposterous  for  Munchausen  before  the  Pennsylvania  oil-regions  demonstrated 
that  "truth  is  stranger  than  fiction. "  The  Monitor,  Raymond,  Williams,  Mc- 
Cutcheon  and  other  wells  kept  the  production  at  a  satisfactory  figure.  Dale  & 
Morrow,  Horton  &  Son,  Hoover  &  Co.,  George  R.  Hobby,  Cornelius  Fulkerson 
and  George  S.  McCartney  were  early  operators.  B.  E.  Swan  located  on  the  farm 
in  May  of  1865  and  drilled  numerous  fair  wells.  He  has  operated  there  for  thirty- 
one  years,  sticking  to  the  second-sand  territory  with  a  tenacity  equal  to  the  "per- 
severance of  the  saints."  When  thousands  of  producers,  imitating  the  dog  that 
let  go  the  bone  to  grasp  the  shadow  in  the  water,  quit  their  enduring  small  wells 


THE   WORLD'S  LUBRICANT.  95 

to  take  their  chance  of  larger  ones  in  costlier  fields,  he  did  not  lose  his  head 
and  add  another  to  the  financial  wrecks  that  strewed  the  greasian  shore.  Appre- 
ciating his  moral  stamina,  his  steadfastness  and  ability,  Mr.  Swan's  friends  insist 
that  he  shall  serve  the  public  in  some  important  office.  Walter  Pennell — his 
father  made  the  first  car-wheels — and  W.  P.  Smith  drilled  several  snug  wells 
on  the  uplands.  Sweet  &  Shaffer  following  with  six  or  eight.  Eighteen  wells  are 
producing  on  the  tract,  which  contains  one-hundred-and  forty  acres  and  has  had 
only  two  dry-holes  in  its  thirty-six  years  of  active  developments. 

Alexander  Cochran,  for  forty  years  owner  of  the  well-known  farm  bearing 
his  name,  is  one  of  the  oldest  citizens  of  Franklin.  Winning  his  way  in  the  world 
by  sheer  force  of  character,  scrupulous  integrity  and  a  fixed  determination  to 
succeed,  he  is  in  the  highest  and  best  sense  a  self-made  man.  Working  hard  in 
boyhood  to  secure  an  education,  he  taught  school,  clerked  in  general  stores, 
studied  law  and  was  twice  elected  Prothonotary  without  asking  one  voter  for  his 
support.  In  these  days  of  button-holing,  log-rolling,  wire-pulling,  buying  and 
soliciting  votes  this  is  a  record  to  recall  with  pride.  Marrying  Miss  Mary  Bole — 
her  father  removed  from  Lewistown  to  Franklin  seventy-five  years  ago — he  built 
the  home  at  "  Cochran  Spring  "  that  is  one  of  the  land-marks  of  the  town  and 
established  a  large  dry-goods  store.  As  his  means  permitted  he  bought  city-lots, 
put  up  dwelling-houses  and  about  1852  paid 
sixteen-hundred  dollars  for  the  farm  in  Cran- 
berry township  for  which  in  1863,  after  it  had 
yielded  a  fortune,  he  refused  seven-hundred- 
thousand  !  The  farm  was  in  two  blocks.  A 
neighbor  expostulated  with  him  for  buying 
the  second  piece,  saying  it  was  "foolish  to 
waste  money  that  way."  In  1861,  when  the 
3ame  neighbor  wished  to  mortgage  his  land 
for  a  loan,  he  naively  remarked  :  ' '  Well, 
Aleck,  I  guess  I  was  the  fool,  not  you,  in 
1852."  A  man  of  broad  views,  Mr.  Cochran 
freely  grants  to  others  the  liberality  of  thought 
he  claims  for  himself.  A  hater  of  cant  and 
sham  and  hollow  pretense,  he  believes  less  in 
musty  creeds  than  kindly  deeds,  more  in  eiv- 

,  ,  ,          ,  ,  ALEXANDER  COCHRAN. 

ing  loaves  than  tracts  to  the   hungry  and 

takes  no  stock  in  religion  that  thinks  only  of  dodging  punishment  in  the  next 
world  and  fails  to  help  humanity  in  this.  In  the  dark  days  of  low-priced  oil  and 
depressed  trade,  he  would  accept  neither  interest  from  his  debtors  nor  royalty 
from  the  operators  who  had  little  wells  on  his  farm.  He  never  hounded  the 
sheriff  on  a  hapless  borrower,  foreclosed  a  mortgage  to  grab  a  coveted  property 
or  seized  the  chattels  of  a  struggling  victim  to  satisfy  a  shirt-tail  note.  There  is 
no  shred  of  the  Pecksniff,  the  Shylock  or  the  Uriah-Heep  in  his  anatomy.  At 
fourscore  he  is  hale  and  hearty,  rides  on  horseback,  cultivates  his  garden, 
attends  to  business,  likes  a  good  play  and  keeps  up  with  the  literature  of  the 
day.  The  productive  oil-farm  is  now  owned  by  his  daughters,  Mrs.  J.  J.  McLau- 
rin,  of  Harrisburg,  and  Mrs.  George  R.  Sheasley,  of  Franklin.  The  proudest 
eulogy  he  could  desire  is  Alexander  Cochran's  just  desert  :  "The  Poor  Man's 
Friend." 

Down  to  Sandy  Creek  many  wells  were  drilled  from  1860  to  1865,  produc- 
ing fairly  at  an  average  depth  of  four-hundred-and-fifty  to  five-hundred  feet. 


96  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

These  operations  included  the  Miller,  Smith  and  Pope  farms,  on  the  west  side 
of  the  river,  and  the  Rice,  Nicklin,  Martin  and  Harmon,  on  the  east  side,  all 
second-sand  territory.  North  of  the  Cochran  and  the  Hoover  work  was  pushed 
actively.  George  H.  Bissell  and  Vance  Stewart  bored  twelve  or  fifteen  medium 
wells  on  the  Stewart  farm  of  two-hundred  acres,  which  the  Cameron  Petroleum 
Company  purchased  in  1865  and  Joseph  Dale  operated  for  some  years.  It  lies 
below  the  lower  bridge,  opposite  the  Bleakley  tract,  from  which  a  light  produc- 
tion is  still  derived.  Above  the  Stewart  are  the  Fuller  and  the  Chambers  farms, 
the  latter  extending  to  the  Allegheny- Valley  depot.  Scores  of  eager  operators 
thronged  the  streets  of  Franklin  and  drilled  along  the  Allegheny.  Joseph  Pow- 
ley  and  Charles  Cowgill  entered  the  lists  in  the  Cranberry  district.  Henry  M. 
Wilson  and  George  Piagett  veered  into  the  township  and  sank  a  bevy  of  dry- 
holes  to  vary  the  monotony.  That  was  a  horse  on  Wilson,  but  he  got  ahead  of 
the  game  by  a  deal  that  won  him  the  nicest  territory  on  Horse  Creek.  Stirling 
Bonsall  and  Colonel  Lewis — they're  dead  now — were  in  the  thichest  of  the  fray, 
with  Captain  Goddard,  Philip  Montgomery,  Boyd,  Roberts,  Foster,  Brown, 
Murphy  and  many  more  whom  old-timers  remember  pleasantly.  Thomas  King, 
whole-souled,  genial  "Tom" — no  squarer  man  e'er  owned  a  well  or  handled 
oil-certificates — and  Captain  Griffith  were  "a  good  pair  to  draw  to."  King  has 
"crossed  over,"  as  have  most  of  the  kindred  spirits  that  dispelled  the  gloom  in 
the  sixties. 

Colonel  W.  T.  Pelton,  nephew  of  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  participated  in  the 
scenes  of  that  exciting  period.  He  lived  at  Franklin  and  drilled  wells  on  French 
Creek.  He  was  a  royal  entertainer,  shrewd  in  business,  finely  educated  and 
polished  in  manner  and  address.  He  and  his  wife — a  lovely  and  accomplished 
woman — were  fond  of  society  and  gained  hosts  of  friends.  They  boarded  at  the 
United-States  Hotel,  where  Mrs.  Pelton  died  suddenly.  This  affliction  led  Col- 
onel Pelton  to  sell  his  oil-properties  and  abandon  the  oil-regions.  Returning  to- 
New  York,  when  next  he  came  into  view  as  the  active  agent  of  his  uncle  in  the 
secret  negotiations  that  grew  out  of  the  election  of  1876,  it  was  with  a  national 
fame.  His  death  in  1880  closed  a  busy,  promising  career. 

In  the  spring  of  1864  a  young  man,  black-haired,  dark-eyed,  an  Apollo  in 
form  and  strikingly  handsome,  arrived  at  Franklin  and  engaged  rooms  at  Mrs. 
Webber's,  on  Buffalo  street.  The  stranger  had  money,  wore  good  clothes  and 
presented  a  letter  of  introduction  to  Joseph  H.  Simonds,  dealer  in  real-estate,  oil- 
wells  and  leases.  He  looked  around  a  few  days  and  concluded  to  invest  in 
sixty  acres  of  the  Fuller  farm,  Cranberry  township,  fronting  on  the  Allegheny 
river.  The  block  was  sliced  off  the  north  end  of  the  farm,  a  short  distance  be- 
low the  upper  bridge  and  the  Valley  station.  Mr.  Simonds  consented  to  be  a 
partner  in  the  transaction.  The  transfer  was  effected,  the  deed  recorded  and  a 
well  started.  It  was  situated  on  the  hill,  had  twenty  feet  of  second-sand  and 
pumped  twenty  barrels  a  day.  The  owner  drilled  two  others  on  the  bluff,  the 
three  yielding  twenty  barrels  for  months.  The  ranks  of  the  oil-producers  had 
received  an  addition  in  the  person  of— John  Wilkes  Booth. 

The  firm  prospered,  each  of  the  members  speculating  and  trading  indi- 
vidually. M.  J.  Colman,  a  capital  fellow,  was  interested  with  one  or  both  in 
various  deals.  Men  generally  liked  Booth  and  women  admired  him  immensely. 
His  lustrous  orbs,  "twin-windows  of  the  soul,"  could  look  so  sad  and  pensive 
as  to  awaken  the  tenderest  pity,  or  fascinate  like  "the  glittering  eye  "  of  the 
Ancient  Mariner  or  the  gaze  of  the  basilisk.  "Trilby"  had  not  come  to  light,  or 
he  might  have  enacted  the  hypnotic  role  of  Svengali.  His  moods  were  va- 


THE   WORLD'S  LUBRICANT.  97 

riableand  uncertain.  At  times  he  seemed  morose  and  petulant,  tired  of  every- 
body and  "  unsocial  as  a  clam."  Again  he  would  court  society,  attend  parties, 
dance,  recite  and  be  "the  life  of  the  company."  He  belonged  to  a  select  circle 
that  exchanged  visits  with  a  coterie  of  young  folks  in  Oil  City.  A  Confederate 
sympathizer  and  enemy  of  the  government, 
his  closest  intimates  were  staunch  Republi- 
cans and  loyal  citizens.  William  J.  Wallis, 
the  veteran  actor  who  died  in  December  ot 

1895,  in  a  Philadelphia  theater  slapped  him  "N       \ 

on  the  mouth  for  calling  President  Lincoln  a 
foul  name.       Booth's  acting,   while  inferior 
to  his  brother  Edwin's,  evinced  much  dra- 
matic power.    He  controlled  his  voice  admi-     I 
rably,   his  movements  were  graceful  and  he     :( 
spoke   distinctly,  as  Franklinites  whom  he 
sometimes  favored  with  a  reading  can  testify.  .Ji^^^S.  ,^^^Bfe^ 

One  morning  in  April,  1865,  he  left 
Franklin,  telling  Mr.  Simonds  he  was  going 
east  a  few  days.  He  carried  a  satchel,  which 
indicated  that  he  did  not  expect  his  stay  to  be  ;  WILKES  BOOTH. 

prolonged.    His  wardrobe,  books  and  papers 

remained  in  his  room.  Nothing  was  heard  of  him  until  the  crime  of  the  century 
stilled  all  hearts  and  the  wires  flashed  the  horrible  news  of  Abraham  Lincoln's 
assassination.  The  excitement  in  Franklin,  the  murderer's  latest  home,  was 
intense.  Crowds  gathered  to  learn  the  dread  particulars  and  discuss  Booth's 
conduct  and  utterances.  Not  a  word  or  act  previous  to  his  departure  pointed 
to  deliberate  preparation  for  the  frightful  deed  that  plunged  the  nation  in  grief. 
That  he  contemplated  it  before  leaving  Franklin  the  weight  of  evidence  tended 
to  disprove.  He  made  no  attempt  to  sell  any  of  his  property,  to  convert  his 
lands  and  wells  into  cash,  to  settle  his  partnership  accounts  or  to  pack  his 
effects.  He  had  money  in  the  bank,  wells  bringing  a  good  income  and  impor- 
tant business  pending.  All  these  things  went  to  show  that,  if  not  a  sudden  im- 
pulse, the  killing  of  Lincoln  was  prompted  by  some  occurrence  in  Washington 
that  fired  the  passionate  nature  John  Wilkes  Booth  inherited  from  his  father. 
The  world  is  familiar  with  the  closing  chapters  of  the  dark  tragedy — the  assas- 
sin's flight,  the  pursuit  into  Virginia,  the  burning  barn,  Sergeant  Corbett's  fatal 
bullet,  the  pathetic  death-scene  on  the  Garrett  porch  and  the  last  message,  just 
as  the  dawn  was  breaking  on  the  glassy  eyes  that  opened  feebly  for  a  moment : 
"  Tell  my  mother  I  died  for  my  country.  I  did  what  I  thought  was  best." 

The  wells  and  the  land  on  the  river  were  held  by  Booth's  heirs  until  1869, 
when  the  tract  changed  hands.  The  farm  is  producing  no  oil  and  the  Simonds- 
Booth  wells  have  disappeared.  Had  he  not  intended  to  return  to  Franklin, 
Booth  would  certainly  have  disposed  of  these  interests  and  given  the  proceeds 
to  his  mother.  "Joe"  Simonds  removed  to  Bradford  to  keep  books  for 
Whitney  &  Wheeler,  bankers  and  oil-operators,  and  died  there  years  ago.  He 
was  an  expert  accountant,  quick,  accurate  and  neat  in  his  work  and  most 
fastidious  in  his  attire.  A  blot  on  his  paper,  a  figure  not  exactly  formed,  a  line 
one  hair-breadth  crooked,  a  spot  on  his  linen  or  a  speck  of  dust  on  his  coat  was 
simply  intolerable.  He  was  correct  in  language  and  deportment  and  honorable 
in  his  dealings.  Colman  continued  his  oil-operations  and,  in  company  with  W. 
R.  Crawford,  a  real-estate  agency  until  the  eighties.  He  married  Miss  Ella 


98  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

Hull,  the  finest  vocalist  Franklin  ever  boasted,  daughter  of  Captain  S.  A.  Hull, 
and  removed  to  Boston.  For  years  paralytic  trouble  has  confined  him  to  his 
house.  He  is  "one  of  nature's  noblemen." 

Over  the  hills  to  the  interior  of  the  townships  developments  spread. 
Bredinsburg,  Milton  and  Tarkiln  loomed  up  in  Cranberry,  where  Taylor  & 
Torrey,  S.  P.  McCalmont,  Jacob  Sheasley,  B.  W.  Bredin  and  E.  W.  Echols 
have  sugar-plums.  In  Sandycreek,  between  Franklin  and  Foster,  Angell  & 
Prentice  brought  Bully  Hill  and  Mount  Hope  to  the  front.  The  biggest  well 
in  the  package  was  a  two-hundred  barreler  on  Mount  Hope,  which  created  a 
mount  of  hopes  that  were  not  fully  realized.  George  V.  Forman  counted  out 
one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand  dollars  for  the  Mount  Hope  corner.  The  terri- 
tory lasted  well  and  averaged  fairly.  Bully  Hill  merited  its  somewhat  slangy 
title.  Dr.  C.  D.  Galbraith,  George  R.  Sheasley  and  Mattern  &  Son  are  among 


N  IN  1873. 


its  present  operators.  Angell  and  Prentice  parted  company,  each  to  engage  in 
opening  up  the  Butler  region.  Prentice,  Crawford,  Barbour  &  Co.  did  not  let 
the  grass  grow  under  their  feet.  They  "knew  a  good  thing  at  sight"  and 
pumped  tens-of-thousands  of  barrels  of  oil  from  the  country  south  of  Franklin. 
The  firm  was  notable  in  the  seventies.  Considerable  drilling  was  done  at  Polk, 
where  the  state  is  providing  a  half-million-dollar  Home  for  Feeble-Minded 
Children,  and  in  the  latitude  of  Utica,  with  about  enough  oil  to  be  an  aggrava- 
tion. The  Shippen  wells,  a  mile  north  of  the  county  poor-house,  have  produced 
for  thirty  years.  West  of  them,  on  the  Russell  farm,  the  Twin  wells,  joined  as 
tightly  as  the  derricks  could  be  placed,  pumped  for  years.  This  was  the  verge 
of  productive  territory,  test  wells  on  the  lands  of  William  Sanders,  William 
Bean,  A.  Reynolds,  John  McKenzie,  Alexander  Frazier  and  W.  Booth,  clear  to 
Cooperstown,  finding  a  trifle  of  sand  and  scarcely  a  vestige  of  oil.  The  Ray- 
monds, S.  Ramage,  John  J.  Doyle  and  Daniel  Grimm  had  a  very  tidy  offshoot 
at  Raymilton.  On  this  wise  lubricating  and  second-sand  oils  were  revealed 
for  the  benefit  of  mankind  generally.  The  fly  in  the  ointment  was  the  clerical 


THE    WORLD1  S  L  UBRICANT.  99 

crank  who  wrote  to  President  Lincoln  to  demand  that  the  producing  of  heavy- 
oil  be  stopped  peremptorily,  as  it  had  been  stored  in  the  ground  to  grease  the 
axletreeofthe  earth  in  its  diurnal  revolution!  This  communication  reminded 
Lincoln  of  a  "  little  story,"  which  he  fired  at  the  fellow  with  such  effect  that  the 
candidate  for  a  strait-jacket  was  perpetually  squelched. 

Hon.  William  Reid  Crawford,  a  member  of  the  firm  of  Prentice,  Crawford, 
Barbour  &  Co. ,  lives  in  Franklin.  His  parents  were  early  settlers  in  north-western 
Pennsylvania.  Alexander  Grant,  his  maternal  grandfather,  built  the  first  stone- 
house  in  Lancaster  county,  removed  to  Butler  county  and  located  finally  in  Arm- 
strong county,  where  he  died  sixty-five  years  ago.  In  1854  William  R.  and  four 
of  his  brothers  went  to  California  and  spent  some  time  mining  gold.  Upon  his 
return  he  settled  on  a  farm  in  Scrubgrass  township,  Venango  county,  of  which 
section  the  Crawfords  had  been  prominent  citizens  from  the  beginning  of  its  his- 
tory. Removing  to  Franklin  in  1865,  Mr.  Crawford  engaged  actively  in  the  pro- 
duction of  petroleum,  operating  extensively  in  various  portions  of  the  oil-regions 
for  twenty  years.  He  acquired  a  high  reputation  for  enterprise  and  integrity, 
was  twice  a  city-councillor,  served  three  terms  as  mayor,  was  long  president  of 
the  school-board,  was  elected  sheriff  in  1887  and  State-Senator  in  1890.  Untir- 
ing fidelity  to  the  interests  of  the  people  and  uncompromising  hostility  to  what- 
ever he  believed  detrimental  to  the  general  welfare  distinguished  his  public 
career.  Genial  and  kindly  to  all,  the  friend  of  humanity  and  benefactor  of  the 
poor,  no  man  stands  better  in  popular  estimation  or  is  more  deserving  of  confi- 
dence and  respect.  His  friends  could  not  be  crowded  into  the  Coliseum  with- 
out bulging  out  the  walls. 

Captain  John  K.  Barbour,  a  man  of  imposing  presence  and  admirable  quali- 
ties, removed  to  Philadelphia  after  the  dissolution  of  the  firm.  The  Standard 
Oil-Company  gave  him  charge  of  the  right-of-way  department  of  its  pipe-line 
service  and  he  returned  to  Franklin.  Two  years  ago,  during  a  business  visit  to 
Ohio,  he  died  unexpectedly,  to  the  deep  regret  of  the  entire  community.  S.  A. 
Wheeler  operated  largely  in  the  Bradford  field  and  organized  the  Tuna-Valley 
Bank  of  Whitney  &  Wheeler.  For  a  dozen  years  he  has  resided  at  Toledo,  his 
early  home.  Like  Captain  Barbour,  "  Fred,"  as  he  was  commonly  called,  had 
an  exhaustless  mine  of  bright  stories  and  a  liberal  share  of  the  elements  of  pop- 
ularity. One  afternoon  in  1875,  three  days  before  the  fire  that  wiped  out  the 
town,  a  party  of  us  chanced  to  meet  at  St.  Joe,  Butler  county,  then  the  centre  of 
oil-developments.  An  itinerating  artist  had  his  car  moored  opposite  the  drug- 
store. Somebody  proposed  to  have  a  group-picture.  The  motion  carried  unani- 
mously and  a  toss-up  decided  that  L.  H.  Smith  was  to  foot  the  bill.  The  pho- 
tographer brought  out  his  camera,  positions  were  taken  on  the  store-platform 
and  the  pictures  were  mailed  an  hour  ahead  of  the  blaze  that  destroyed  most  of 
the  buildings  and  compelled  the  artist  to  hustle  off  his  car  on  the  double-quick. 
Samuel  R.  Reed,  at  the  extreme  right,  operated  in  the  Clarion  field.  He  had  a  hard- 
ware-store in  company  with  the  late  Dr.  Durrant  and  his  home  is  in  Franklin. 
James  Orr,  between  whom  and  Reed  a  telegraph-pole  is  seen,  was  connected 
with  the  Central  Hotel  at  Petrolia  and  later  was  a  broker  in  the  Producers'  Ex- 
change at  Bradford.  On  the  step  is  Thomas  McLaughlin,  now  oil-buyer  at 
Lima,  once  captain  of  a  talented  base-ball  club  at  Oil  City  and  an  active  oil- 
broker.  Back  of  him  is  "  Fred"  Wheeler,  with  Captain  Barbour  on  his  right 
and  L.  H.  Smith  sitting  comfortably  in  front.  Mr.  Smith  figured  largely  at  Pit- 
hole,  operated  satisfactorily  around  Petrolia  and  removed  years  ago  to  New 
York.  Cast  in  a  giant  mould,  he  weighs  three-hundred  pounds  and  does  credit 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


to  the  illustrious  legions  of  Smiths.  He  is  a  millionaire  and  has  an  office  over 
the  Seaboard  Bank,  at  the  lower  end  of  Broadway.  Joseph  Seep,  the  king-bee 
of  good  fellows,  sits  beside  Smith.  Pratt  S.  Crosby,  formerly  a  jolly  broker  at 
Parker  and  Oil  City,  stands  behind  Seep.  Next  him  is  "Tom  "  King,  who  has 
"gone  to  the  land  of  the  leal,"  J.  J.  McLaurin  ending  the  line.  James  Amm, 
who  went  from  an  Oil-City  clerksnip  to  coin  a  fortune  at  Bradford — a  street 

bears  his  name— sits 
on  the  platform. 
Every  man,  woman, 
child  and  baby  in 
Oil-City  knew  and 
liked  "Jamie" 
Amm,  who  is  enjoy- 
ing his  wealth  in  Buf- 
falo. Two  of  the 
eleven  in  the  group 
have  ' '  passed  be- 
yond the  last  scene  " 
and  the  other  nine 
are  scattered  widely. 
Frederic  Prentice, 
one  of  the  pluckiest 
operators  in  petro- 
leum-annals, was  the 

first  white  child  born  on  the  site  of  Toledo,  when  Indians  were  the  neighbors 
of  the  pioneers  of  Northern  Ohio.  His  father  left  a  fine  estate,  which  the 
son  increased  greatly  by  extensive  lumbering,  in  which  he  employed  three- 
thousand  men.  Losses  in  the  panic  of  1857  retired  him  from  the  business.  He 
retrieved  his  fortune  and  paid  his  creditors  their  claims  in  full,  with  ten  per  cent, 
interest,  an  act  indicative  of  his  sterling  character.  Reading  in  a  newspaper 
about  the  Drake  well,  he  decided  to  see  for  himself  whether  the  story  was  fast 
colors.  Journeying  to  Venango  county  by  way  of  Pittsburg,  he  met  and  engaged 
William  Reed  to  accompany  him.  Reed  had  worked  at  the  Tarentum  salt- 
wells  and  knew  a  thing  or  two  about  artesian-boring.  The  two  arrived  at 
Franklin  on  the  afternoon  of  the  day  Evans's  well  turned  the  settlement  topsy- 
turvy. Next  morning  Prentice  offered  Evans  forty-thousand  dollars  for  a  con- 
trolling interest  in  the  well,  one-fourth  down  and  the  balance  in  thirty,  sixty  and 
ninety  days.  Evans  declining  to  sell,  the  Toledo  visitor  bought  from  Martin  & 
Epley  an  acre  of  ground  on  the  north  bank  of  French  Creek,  at  the  base  of  the 
hill,  and  contracted  with  Reed  to  "  kick  down  "  a  well,  the  third  in  the  district. 
Prentice  and  Reed  tramped  over  the  country  for  days,  locating  oil-deposits  by 
means  of  the  witch-hazel,  which  the  Tarentumite  handled  skillfully.  This  was 
a  forked  stick,  which  it  was  claimed  turned  in  the  hands  of  the  holder  at  spots 
where  oil  existed.  Various  causes  delayed  the  completion  of  the  well,  which  at 
last  proved  disappointingly  small.  Meanwhile  Mr.  Prentice  leased  the  Neeley 
farm,  two  miles  up  the  Allegheny,  in  Cranberry  township,  and  bored  several 
paying  wells.  A  railroad  station  on  the  tract  is  named  after  him  and  R.  G. 
Lamberton  has  converted  the  property  into  a  first-class  stock-farm.  Favorable 
reports  from  Little  Kanawha  River  took  him  to  West  Virginia,  where  he  leased 
and  purchased  immense  blocks  of  land.  Among  them  was  the  Oil-Springs  tract, 
on  the  Hughes  River,  from  which  oil  had  been  skimmed  for  generations.  Two 


THE    WORLD'S   LUBRICANT. 


of  his  wells  on  the  Kanawha  yielded  six-hundred  barrels  a  day,  which  had  to  be 
stored  in  ponds  or  lakes  for  want  of  tankage.  Confederate  raiders  burned  the 
wells,  oil  and  machinery  and  drove  off  the  workmen,  putting  an  extinguisher 
on  operations  until  the  Grant-Lee  episode  beneath  the  apple-tree  at  Appomattox. 

Assuming  that  the  general  direction  of  profitable  developments  would  be 
north-east  and  south-west,  Mr.  Prentice  surveyed  a  line  from  Venango  county 
through  West  Virginia,  Kentucky  and  Tennessee.  This  idea,  really  the  foun- 
dation of  ' '  the  belt  theory, ' '  he  spent  thousands  of  dollars  to  establish.  Personal 
investigation  and  careful  surveys  confirmed  his  opinion,  which  was  based  upon 
observations  in  the  Pennsylvania  fields.  The  line  run  thirty  years  ago  touched 
numerous  ''springs"  and  "surface  shows"  and  recent  tests  prove  its  remarkable 
accuracy.  On  this  theory  he  drilled  at  Mount  Hope  and  Foster,  opening  a 
section  that  has  produced  several-million  barrels  of  oil.  C.  D.  Angell  applied 
the  principle  in  Clarion  and  Butler  counties,  mapping  out  the  probable  course  of 
the  "  belt "  and  leasing  much  prolific  territory.  His  success  led  others  to  adopt 
the  same  plan,  developing  a  number  of  pools  in  four  states,  although  nature's 
lines  are  seldom  straight  and  the  oil-bearing  strata  are  deposited  in  curves  and 
beds  at  irregular  intervals. 

In  company  with  W.  W.  Clark  of  New  York,  to  whom  he  had  traded  a 
portion  of  his  West- Virginia  lands,  Mr.  Prentice  secured  a  quarter-interest  in  the 
Tarr  farm,  on  Oil  Creek,  shortly  before  the  sinking  of  the  Phillips  well,  and 
began  shipping  oil  to  New  York.  They  paid  three  dollars  apiece  for  barrels, 
four  dollars  a  barrel  for  hauling  to  the  railroad  and  enormous  freights  to  the 
east.  The  price  dropping  below  the  cost 
of  freights  and  barrels,  the  firm  dug  acres  of 
pits  to  put  tanks  under  ground,  covering 
them  with  planks  and  earth  to  prevent  evap- 
oration. Traces  of  these  storage-vats  re- 
main on  the  east  bank  of  Oil  Creek.  Crude 
fell  to  twenty-five  cents  a  barrel  at  the  wells 
and  the  outlook  was  discouraging.  Clark 
&  Prentice  stopped  drilling  and  turned  their 
attention  to  finding  a  market.  They  con- 
structed neat  wooden  packages  that  would 
hold  two  cans  of  refined-oil,  two  oil-lamps 
and  a  dozen  chimneys  and  sent  one  to  each 
United-States  Consul  in  Europe.  Orders 
soon  rushed  in  from  foreign  countries, 
especially  Germany,  France  and  England, 
stimulating  the  erection  of  refineries  and 
creating  a  large  export  trade.  Clark  &  Summer,  who  also  owned  an  interest  in 
the  Tarr  farm,  built  the  Standard  Refinery  at  Pittsburg  and  agreed  to  take  from 
Clark  &  Prentice  one-hundred-thousand  barrels  of  crude  at  a  dollar  a  barrel,  to 
be  delivered  as  required  during  the  year.  Before  the  delivery  of  the  first  twenty- 
five-thousand  barrels  the  price  climbed  to  one-fifty  and  to  six  dollars  before  the 
completion  of  the  contract,  which  was  carried  out  to  the  letter.  The  advance 
continued  to  fourteen  dollars  a  barrel,  lasting  only  one  day  at  this  figure.  These 
were  vivifying  days  in  oleaginous  circles,  never  to  be  repeated  while  Chronos 
wields  his  trusty  blade. 

When  crude  reached  two  dollars  Mr.  Prentice  bought  the  Washington- 
McClintock  farm,  on  which  Petroleum  Centre  was  afterwards  located,  for  three~ 


FREDERIC    PRENTICE. 


to2  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

hundred-thousand  dollars.  Five  New-Yorkers,  one  of  them  the  president  of  the 
Shoe  and  Leather  Bank  and  another  the  proprietor  of  the  Brevoort  House,  ad- 
vanced fifty-thousand  dollars  for  the  first  payment.  Within  sixty  days  Prentice 
sold  three-quarters  of  his  interest  for  nine-hundred-thousand  dollars  and  or- 
ganized the  Central  Petroleum  Oil-Company,  with  a  capital  of  five-millions ! 
Wishing  to  repay  the  New  York  loan,  the  Brevoort  landlord  desired  him  to  re- 
tain his  share  of  the  money  and  invest  it  as  he  pleased.  For  his  ten-thousand 
dollars  mine  host  received  eighty-thousand  in  six  months,  a  return  that  leaves 
government-bond  syndicates  and  Cripple-Creek  speculations  out  in  the  latitude 
of  Nansen's  north-pole.  The  company  netted  fifty-thousand  dollars  a  month  in 
dividends  for  years  and  lessees  cleared  three  or  four  millions  from  their  opera- 
tions on  the  farm.  Greenbacks  circulated  like  waste-paper,  Jules  Verne's  fan- 
cies were  surpassed  constantly  by  actual  occurrences  and  everybody  had  money 
to  burn. 

Prentice  and  his  associates  purchased  many  tracts  along  Oil  Creek,  including 
the  lands  where  Oil  City  stands  and  the  Blood  farm  of  five-hundred  acres.  In 
the  Butler  district  he  drilled  hundreds  of  wells  and  built  the  Relief  Pipe-Line. 
Organizing  The  Producers'  Consolidated  Land  and  Petroleum  Company,  with 
a  capital  of  two-and-a-half  millions,  he  managed  it  efficiently  and  had  a  promi- 
nent part  in  the  Bradford  development.  Boston  capitalists  paid  in  twelve-hun- 
dred-thousand dollars,  Prentice  keeping  a  share  in  his  oil-properties  represent- 
ing thirteen-hundred-thousand  more.  The  company  is  now  controlled  by  the 
Standard,  with  L.  B.  Lockard  as  superintendent.  Its  indefatigable  founder  also 
organized  the  Boston  Oil  Company  to  operate  in  Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  put 
down  oil-wells  in  Peru  and  gas-wells  in  West  Virginia,  produced  and  piped 
thousands  of  barrels  of  crude  daily  and  was  a  vital  force  in  petroleum-affairs 
for  eighteen  years.  The  confidence  and  esteem  of  his  compatriots  were  attested 
by  his  unanimous  election  to  the  presidency  of  the  Oilmen's  League,  a  secret- 
society  formed  to  resist  the  proposed  encroachments  of  the  South  Improvement 
Company.  The  League  accomplished  its  mission  and  then  quietly  melted  out 
of  existence. 

Since  1877  Mr.  Prentice  has  devoted  his  attention  chiefly  to  lumbering  in 
West  Virginia  and  to  his  brown-stone  quarries  at  Ashland,  Wisconsin.  The 
death  of  his  son,  Frederick  A.,  by  accidental  shooting,  was  a  sad  bereavement 
to  the  aged  father.  His  suits  to  get  possession  of  the  site  of  Duluth,  the  city  of 
Proctor  Knott's  impassioned  eulogy,  included  in  a  huge  grant  of  land  deeded  to 
him  by  the  Indians,  were  scarcely  less  famous  than  Mrs.  Gaines's  protracted  liti- 
gation to  recover  a  slice  of  New  Orleans.  The  claim  involved  the  title  to  prop- 
erty valued  at  twelve-millions  of  dollars.  From  his  Ashland  quarries  the  owner 
took  out  a  monolith,  designed  for  the  Columbian  Exposition  in  1893,  forty  yards 
long  and  ten  feet  square  at  the  base.  Beside  this  monster  stone  Cleopatra's 
Needle,  disintegrating  in  Central  Park,  Pompey's  Pillar  and  the  biggest  blocks 
in  the  pyramids  are  Tom-Thumb  pigmies.  At  seventy-four  Mr.  Prentice,  fore- 
most in  energy  and  enterprise,  retains  much  of  his  youthful  vigor.  Earnest  and 
sincere,  a  master  of  business,  his  word  as  good  as  gold,  Frederic  Prentice  holds 
an  honored  place  in  the  ranks  of  representative  oil-producers,  "nobles  of 
nature's  own  creating." 

A  native  of  Chautauqua  county,  N,  Y.,  where  he  was  born  in  1826,  Cyrus 
D.  Angell  received  a  liberal  education,  served  as  School-Commissioner  and 
engaged  in  mercantile  pursuits  at  Forestville.  %  Forced  through  treachery  and 
the  monetary  stringency  of  the  times  to  compromise  with  his  creditors,  he  recov- 


THE   WORLD'S  LUBRICANT.  103 

ered  his  financial  standing  and  paid  every  cent  of  his  indebtedness,  principal 
and  interest.  In  1867  he  came  to  the  oil  regions  with  a  loan  of  one-thousand 
dollars  and  purchased  an  interest  in  property  at  Petroleum  Centre  that  paid 
handsomely.  Prior  to  this,  in  connection  with  Buffalo  capitalists,  he  had  bought 
Belle  Island,  in  the  Allegheny  River  at  Scrub- 
grass,  upon  which  soon  after  his  arrival  he 
drilled  three  wells  that  averaged  one-hundred 
barrels  each  for  two  years,  netting  the  owners 
over  two-hundred-thousand  dollars.  Opera- 
tions below  Franklin,  in  company  with  Frederic 
Prentice,  also  proved  highly  profitable.  His 
observations  of  the  course  of  developments 
along  Oil  Creek  and  the  Allegheny  led  Mr. 
Angell  to  the  conclusion  that  petroleum  would 
be  found  in  "belts"  or  regular  lines.  He 
adopted  the  theory  that  two  "belts"  existed, 
one  running  from  Petroleum  Centre  to  Scrub- 
grass  and  the  other  from  St.  Petersburg  through 
Butler  county.  Satisfied  of  the  correctness  of  ^^H^^^^ 

this  view,  he  leased  or  purchased  all  the  lands 

...  ,       ,   ,         ,  ,        .  ,.      ,  ,     ,       .    ,,  CYRUS    D.    ANGELL. 

within  the  probable  boundaries  ot  the     belt 

from  Foster  to  Belle  Island,  a  distance  of  six  miles.  The  result  justified  his 
expectations,  ninety  per  cent,  of  the  wells  yielding  abundantly.  With  "the  belt 
theory,"  which  he  followed  up  with  equal  success  farther  south,  Mr.  Angell's 
name  is  linked  indissolubly.  His  researches  enriched  him  and  were  of  vast  ben- 
efit to  the  producers  generally.  He  did  much  to  extend  the  Butler  region,  drill- 
ing far  ahead  of  tested  territory.  The  town  of  Angelica  owed  its  creation  to  his 
fortunate  operations  in  the  neighborhood,  conducted  on  a  comprehensive  scale. 
Reverses  could  not  crush  his  manly  spirit.  He  did  a  large  real-estate  business 
at  Bradford  for  some  years,  opening  an  office  at  Pittsburg  when  the  Washington 
field  began  to  loom  up.  Failing  health  compelling  him  to  seek  relief  in  foreign 
travel,  last  year  he  went  to  Mexico  and  Europe.  He  is  still  abroad.  Mr.  Angell 
is  endowed  with  boundless  energy,  fine  intellectual  powers  and  rare  social  ac- 
quirements. During  his  career  in  Oildom  he  was  an  excellent  sample  of  the 
courageous,  unconquerable  men  who  have  made  petroleum  the  commercial 
wonder  of  the  world. 

An  old  couple  in  Cranberry  township,  who  eked  out  a  scanty  living  on  a 
rocky  farm  near  the  river,  sold  their  land  for  sixty-thousand  dollars  at  the  high- 
est pitch  of  the  oil-excitement  around  Foster.  This  was  more  money  than  the 
pair  had  ever  before  seen,  much  less  expected  to  handle  and  own.  It  was  paid 
in  bank-notes  at  noon  and  the  log-house  was  to  be  vacated  next  day.  Towards 
evening  the  poor  old  woman  burst  into  tears  and  insisted  that  her  husband 
should  give  back  the  money  to  the  man  that  "  wanted  to  rob  them  of  their 
home."  She  was  inconsolable,  declaring  they  would  be  "turned  out  to  starve, 
without  a  roof  to  cover  them."  The  idea  that  sixty-thousand  dollars  would 
buy  an  ideal  home  brought  no  comfort  to  the  simple-minded  creature,  whose 
hopes  and  ambitions  were  confined  to  the  lowly  abode  that  had  sheltered  her 
for  a  half-century.  A  promise  to  settle  near  her  brother  in  Ohio  reconciled  her 
somewhat,  but  it  almost  broke  her  faithful  heart  to  leave  a  spot  endeared  by 
many  tender  associations.  John  Howard  Payne,  himself  a  homeless  wanderer, 


104 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


whose  song  has  been  sung  in  every  tongue  and  echoed  in  every  soul,  was  right 
in  asserting  : 

"  Be  it  ever  so  humble,  there's  no  place  like  home." 

The  refusal  of  his  wife  to  sign  the  deed  conveying  the  property  enabled  a 
wealthy  Franklinite  to  gather  a  heap  of  money.  The  tract  was  rough  and  un- 
productive and  the  owner  proposed  to  accept  for  it  the  small  sum  offered  by  a 
neighboring  farmer,  who  wanted  more  pasture  for  his  cattle.  For  the  first  time 
in  her  life  the  wife  declined  to  sign  a  paper  at  her  husband's  request,  saying  she 
had  a  notion  the  farm  would  be  valuable  some  day.  The  purchaser  refused  to 
take  it  subject  to  a  dower  and  the  land  lay  idle.  At  length  oil-developments 
indicated  that  the  "  belt "  ran  through  the  farm.  Scores  of  wells  yielded  freely, 
netting  the  land-owner  a  fortune  and  convincing  him  that  womanly  intuition  is  a 
sure  winner. 

A  citizen  of  Franklin,  noted  for  his  conscientiousness  and  liberality,  was  in- 
terested in  a  test-well  at  the  beginning  of  the  Scrubgrass  development.  He 
vowed  to  set  aside  one -fourth  of  his  portion  of  the  output  of  the  well  "  for  the 
Lord,"  as  he  expressed  it.  To  the  delight  of  the  owners,  who  thought  the  ven- 
ture hazardous,  the  well  showed  for  a  hundred  barrels  when  the  tubing  was  put 
in.  On  his  way  back  from  the  scene  the  Franklin  gentleman  did  a  little  figur- 
ing, which  proved  that  the  Lord's  percentage  of  the  oil  might  foot  up  fifty  dollars 
a  day.  This  was  a  good  deal  of  money  for  religious  purposes.  The  maker  of 
the  vow  reflected  that  the  Lord  could  get  along  without  so  much  cash  and  he 
decided  to  clip  the  one-fourth  down  to  one-tenth,  arguing  that  the  latter  was  the 
scripture  limit.  Talking  it  over  with  his  wife,  she  advised  him  to  stick  to  his 
original  determination  and  not  trifle  with  the  Lord.  The  husband  took  his  own 
way,  as  husbands  are  prone  to  do,  and  revisited  the  well  next  day.  Something 
had  gone  wrong  with  the  working-valve,  the  tubing  had  to  be  drawn  out  and  the 
well  never  pumped  a  barrel 
of  oil !  The  chagrined 
^^jljfjt^.  operator  concluded,  as  he 

charged  two  thousand  dol- 
.  _^^  j.  lars  to  his  profit-and-loss 

account,  that  it  was  not  the 
*^-v  Lord  who  came  out  at  the 

small  end  of  the  horn  in 
the  transaction. 

Rev.  Clarence  A.  Ad- 
ams, the  eloquent  ex-pas- 
tor of  the  First  Baptist 
Church  at  Franklin,  is  the 

lucky  owner  of  a  patch  of  REV  EZRA  F-  CRANE.  D-D- 
paying  territory  at  Raymilton.  Recently  he  finished  a  well  which  pumped  con- 
siderable salt-water  with  the  oil.  Contrary  to  Cavendish  and  the  ordinary  cus- 
tom, another  operator  drilled  very  close  to  the  boundary  of  the  Adams  lease 
and  torpedoed  the  well  heavily.  Instead  of  sucking  the  oil  from  the  preacher's 
nice  pumper,  the  new  well  took  away  most  of  the  salt-water  and  doubled  the 
production  of  petroleum  !  Commonly  it  would  seem  rather  mean  to  rob  a  Bap- 
tist minister  of  water,  but  in  this  case  Dr.  Adams  is  perfectly  resigned  to  the  loss 
of  aqueous  fluid  and  gain  of  dollar-fifty  crude.  A  profound  student  of  Shake- 
speare, Browning  and  the  Bible,  a  brilliant  lecturer  and  master  of  pulpit-oratory, 
may  he  also  stand  on  a  lofty  rung  of  the  greasian  ladder  and  attain  the  goodly 


THE    WORLD'S  LUBRICANT. 


105 


age  of  Franklin's  "grand  old  man,"  Rev.  Dr.  Crane.  This  "  father  in  Israel," 
whose  death  in  February  of  1896  the  whole  community  mourned,  left  a  record 
of  devoted  service  as  a  physician  and  clergyman  for  over  sixty  years  that  has 
seldom  been  equaled.  He  healed  the  sick,  smoothed  the  pillow  of  the  dying, 
relieved  the  distressed,  reclaimed  the  erring,  comforted  the  bereaved,  turned 
the  faces  of  the  straying  Zionward  and  found  the  passage  to  the  tomb  "a  gent '  ± 
wafting  to  immortal  life." 

"  Though  old,  he  still  retained 
His  manly  sense  and  energy  of  mind. 
Virtuous  and  wise  he  was,  but  not  severe, 
For  he  remembered  that  he  once  was  young ; 
His  kindly  presence  checked  no  decent  joy. 
Him  e'en  the  dissolute  admired.    Can  he  be  dead 
Whose  spiritual  influence  is  upon  his  kind  ?" 

Miss  Lizzie  Raymond,  daughter  of  the  pioneer  who  founded  Raymilton 
and  erected  the  first  grist-mill  at  Utica,  has  long  taught  the  infant-class  of  the 
Presbyterian  Sunday-school  at  Franklin.  Once  the  lesson  was  about  the  wise 
and  the  foolish  virgins,  the  good  teacher  explaining  the  subject  in  a  style 
adapted  to  the  juvenile  mind.  A  cute  little  tot,  impressed  by  the  sad  plight  of 
the  virgins  who  had  no  oil  in  their  lamps,  innocently  inquired  :  "Miss  'Ay- 
mond,  tan't  oo  tell  'em  dirls  to  turn  to  our  house  an'  my  papa  '11  div'  'em  oil 
fum  his  wells?  "  Heaven  bless  the  children  that  come  as  sunbeams  to  lighten 
our  pathway,  to  teach  us  lessons  of  unselfishness  and  prevent  the  rough  world 
from  turning  our  hearts  as  hard  as  the  mill- 
stone. 

Another  youngster  prayed  every  morn- 
ing and  night  that  a  well  her  father  was 
drilling  on  Bully  Hill  would  be  a  good  one. 
It  was  a  hopeless  failure,  finished  the  day 
before  Christmas.  The  result  disturbed 
the  child  exceedingly.  That  night,  as  the 
loving  mother  was  preparing  her  for  bed, 
the  little  girl  observed  :  "  I  dess  it's  no  use 
prayin'  'till  after  Kismas,  'cos  God's  so  busy 
helpin'  Santa  Claus  He  hasn't  time  for  no- 
body else  !  " 

The  late  Thomas  McDonough,  a  loyal- 
hearted  son  cf  the  Emerald  Isle,  was  also 
an  operator  in  the  lubricating  region.  He 
had  an  abundance  of  rollicking  wit,  "the 
pupil  of  the  soul's  clear  eye,"  and  an  unfailing  supply  of  droll  stories.  Desiring 
to  lease  a  farm  in  Sandy-Creek  township,  supposed  to  be  squarely  ' '  on  the  belt, ' ' 
he  started  at  daybreak  to  interview  the  owner,  feeling  sure  his  mission  would 
succeed.  An  unexpected  sight  presented  itself  through  the  open  door,  as  the 
visitor  stepped  upon  the  porch  of  the  dwelling.  The  farmer's  wife  was  setting 
the  table  for  breakfast  and  Frederic  Prentice  was  folding  a  paper  carefully. 
McDonough  realized  in  a  twinkling  that  Prentice  had  secured  the  lease  and  his 
trip  was  fruitless.  ' '  I  am  looking  for  John  Smith  "he  stammered,  as  the  farmer 
invited  him  to  enter,  and  beat  a  hasty  retreat.  For  years  his  friends  rallied  the 
Colonel  on  his  search  and  would  ask  with  becoming  solemnity  whether  he  had 
discovered  John  Smith.  The  last  time  we  met  in  Philadelphia  this  incident  was 
revived  and  the  query  repeated  jocularly.  The  jovial  McDonough  died  in  1894. 


THOMAS  M'DONOUGH. 


106  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

It  is  safe  to  assume  that  he  will  easily  find  numerous  John  Smiths  in  the  land  of 
perpetual  reunion.  One  day  he  told  a  story  in  an  office  on  Thirteenth  street, 
Franklin,  which  tickled  the  hearers  immensely.  A  full-fledged  African,  who 
had  been  sweeping  the  back-room,  broke  into  a  tumultuous  laugh.  At  that 
moment  a  small  boy  was  riding  a  donkey  directly  in  front  of  the  premises. 
The  jackass  heard  the  peculiar  laugh  and  elevated  his  capacious  ears  more 
fully  to  take  in  the  complete  volume  of  sound.  He  must  have  thought  the  mel- 
ody familiar  and  believed  he  had  stumbled  upon  a  relative.  Despite  the  frantic 
exertions  of  the  boy,  the  donkey  rushed  towards  the  building  whence  the  bois- 
terous guffaw  proceeded,  shoved  his  head  inside  the  door  and  launched  a  ter- 
rific bray.  The  bystanders  were  convulsed  at  this  evidence  of  mistaken 
identity,  which  the  jol'y  story-teller  frequently  rehearsed  for  the  delectation  of 
his  hosts  of  friends. 

Looking  over  the  Milton  diggings  one  July  day,  Col.  McDonough  met  an 
amateur-operator  who  was  superintending  the  removal  of  a  wooden-tank  from 
a  position  beside  his  first  and  only  well.  A  discussion  started  regarding  the 
combustibility  of  the  thick  sediment  collected  on  the  bottom  of  the  tank.  The 
amateur  maintained  the  stuff  would  not  burn  and  McDonough  laughingly  re- 
plied, "Well,  just  try  it  and  see  !"  The  fellow  lighted  a  match  and  applied  it  to 
the  viscid  mass  before  McDonough  could  interfere,  saying  with  a  grin  that  he 
proposed  to  wait  patiently  for  the  result.  He  didn't  have  to  wait  "  until  Orcus 
would  freeze  over  and  the  boys  play  shinny  on  the  ice."  In  the  ninetieth  frac- 
tion of  a  second  the  deposit  blazed  with  intense  enthusiasm,  quickly  enveloping 
the  well-rig  and  the  surroundings  in  flames.  Clouds  of  smoke  filled  the  air, 
suggesting  fancies  of  Pittsburg  or  Sheol.  Charred  fragments  of  the  derrick, 
engine-house  and  tank,  with  an  acre  of  blackened  territory  over  which  the  burn- 
ing sediment  had  spread,  demonstrated  that  the  amateur's  idea  had  been  de- 
cidedly at  fault.  The  experiment  convinced  him  as  searchingly  as  a  Roentgen 
ray  that  McDonough  had  the  right  side  of  the  argument.  "If  the  'b.  s.'  had 
been  as  green  as  the  blamed  fool,  it  wouldn't  have  burned,"  was  the  Colonel's 
appropriate  comment. 

In  your  wide  peregrinations  from  the  poles  to  the  equator, 
Should  you  hear  some  ignoramus— let  out  of  his  incubator — 
Say  the  heavy  oil  of  Franklin  is  not  earth's  best  lubricator, 
Do  as  did  renown'd  Tom  Corwin,  the  great  Buckeye  legislator, 
When  a  jabberwock  in  Congress  sought  to  brand  him  as  a  traitor: 
Just  "  deny  the  allegation  and  defy  the  allegator !" 


VIL 


THE    VALLEY    OF   PETROLEUM. 

WONDERFUL  SCENES  ON  OIL  CREKK — MUD  AND  GREASE  GALORE— RISE  AND  FALL 
OP  PHENOMENAL  TOWNS — SHAFFER,  PIONEER  AND  PETROLEUM  CENTRE— FOR- 
TUNE'S QUEER  VAGARIES— WELLS  FLOWING  THOUSANDS  OF  BARRELS— SHERMAN, 
DELAMATER  AND  "  COAL-OIL  JOHNNIE" — FROM  PENURY  TO  WEALTH  AND  BACK 
— TRUTHFUL  RECITALS  THAT  DISCOUNT  FAIRY-TALES. 


"  Some  ships  come  into  port  that  are  not  steered." — Seneca. 

"  God  has  placed  in  his  great  bank — mother  earth — untold  wealth  and  many  a  poor  man's  check 
has  been  honored  here  for  large  amounts  of  oil." — T.  S.  Scoville,  A.  D.  1861. 

"Ain't  that  well  spittin'  oil  ?"— Small  Boy,  A.  D.  1863. 

"  Wonderful,  most  wonderful,  marvelous,  most  marvelous,  are  the  stories  told  of  the  oil  region. 
It  is  another  California."— John  IV.  Forney,  A.  D.  1863. 

"  Coal-oil  Johnnie  is  my  name." — Popular  Song. 

"  Derricks  peered  up  behind  the  houses  of  Oil  Citv,  like  dismounted  steeples,  and  oil  was  pump- 
ing in  the  back-yards."— London  Post,  A  D.  1865. 


FER 


ORTY-THREE  farms  of  manifold  shapes 
and  sizes  lay  along  the  stream  from 
the  Drake  well  to  the  mouth  of  Oil 
Creek,  sixteen  miles  southward.  For 
sixty  years  the  occupants  of  these 
tracts  had  forced  a  bare  subsistence 
from  the  reluctant  soil.  "  Content  to 
live,  to  propagate  and  die,"  their  re- 
quirements and  their  resources  were 
alike  scanty.  They  knew  nothing  of 
the  artificial  necessities  and  extrava- 
gances of  fashionable  life.  To  most 
of  them  the  great,  busy,  plodding 
world  was  a  sealed  book,  which  they 
had  neither  the  means  nor  the  inclina- 
tion to  unclasp.  The  world  recipro- 
cated by  wagging  in  its  customary 
groove,  blissfully  unconscious  of  the 

scattered  settlers  on  the  banks  of  the  Allegheny's  tributary.  A  trip  on  a  raft  to 
Pittsburg,  with  the  privilege  of  walking  back,  was  the  limit  of  their  journeyings 
from  the  hills  and  rocks  of  Venango.  Hunting,  fishing  and  hauling  saw-logs  in 
winter  aided  in  replenishing  the  domestic  larder.  None  imagined  the  unpro . 
ductive  valley  would  become  the  cradle  of  an  industry  before  which  cotton  and 

109 


no  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

coal  and  iron  must  "  hide  their  diminished  heads."  No  prophet  had  proclaimed 
that  lands  on  Oil  Creek  would  sell  for  more  than  corner-lots  in  London  or  New 
York.  Who  could  have  conceived  that  these  bold  cliffs  and  patches  of  clearing 
would  enlist  ambitious  mortals  from  every  quarter  of  the  globe  in  a  mad  race 
to  secure  a  foothold  on  the  coveted  acres  ?  What  seventh  son  of  a  seventh  son 
could  foresee  that  a  thousand  dollars  spent  on  the  Willard  farm  would  yield 
innumerable  millions  ?  Who  could  predict  that  a  tiny  stream  of  greenish  fluid, 
pumped  from  a  hole  on  an  island  too  insignificant  to  have  a  name,  would  swell 
into  the  vast  ocean  of  petroleum  that  is  the  miracle  of  the  nineteenth  century? 
Fortune  has  played  many  pranks,  but  the  queerest  of  them  all  were  the  vagaries 
incidental  to  the  petroleum-development  on  Oil  Creek. 

The  Bissell,  Griffin,  Conley,  two  Stackpole,  Pott,  Shreve,  two  Fleming, 
Henderson  and  Jones  farms,  comprising  the  four  miles  between  the  Drake  well 
and  the  Miller  tract,  were  not  especially  prolific.  Traces  of  a  hundred  oil-pits, 
in  some  of  which  oak-trees  had  grown  to  enormous  size,  are  visible  on  the 
Bissell  plot  of  eighty  acres.  A  large  dam,  used  for  pond-freshets,  was  located 
on  Oliver  Stackpole's  farm.  Two  refineries  of  small  capacity  were  built  on  the 
Stackpole  and  Fletcher  lands,  where  eighteen  or  twenty  wells  produced  moder- 
ately. The  owner  of  a  flowing  well  on  the  lower  Fleming  farm,  imitating  the 
man  who  killed  the  goose  that  la:d  the  golden  eggs,  sought  to  increase  its  out- 
put by  putting  the  tubing  and  seed-bagging  farther  down.  The  well  resented 
the  interference,  refusing  to  yield  another  drop  and  pointing  the  obvious  moral : 
"Let  well  enough  alone!"  The  Miller  farm  of  four-hundred  acres,  on  both 
sides  of  the  creek,  was  purchased  in  1863  from  Robert  Miller  by  the  Indian 
Rock-Oil  Company  of  New  York.  Now  a  railroad  station  and  formerly  the 
principal  shipping-point  for  oil,  refineries  were  started,  wells  were  drilled  and 
the  stirring  town  of  Meredith  blossomed  for  a  little  space.  The  Lincoln  well 
turned  out  sixty  barrels  a  day,  the  Boston  fifty,  the  Bobtail  forty,  the  Hemlock 
thirty  and  others  from  ten  to  twenty-five,  at  an  average  depth  of  six-hundred 
feet.  The  Barnsdall  Oil-Company  operated  on  the  Miller  and  the  Shreve  farms, 
drilling  extensively  on  Hemlock  Run,  and  George  Bartlett  ran  the  Sunshine 
Oil-Works.  The  village,  the  refineries  and  the  derricks  have  disappeared  as 
completely  as  Herculaneum  or  Sir  John  Franklin. 

George  Shaffer  owned  fifty  acres  below  the  Miller  farm,  divided  by  Oil 
Creek  into  two  blocks,  one  in  Cherrytree  township  and  the  other  in  Alle- 
gheny. Twenty-four  wells,  eight  of  them  failures,  were  put  down  on  the  flats 
and  the  abrupt  hill  bordering  the  eastern  shore  of  the  stream.  Samuel  Dow- 
ner's Rangoon  and  three  of  Watson  &  Brewer's  were  the  largest,  ranking  in  the 
fifty-barrel  list.  In  July  of  1864  the  Oil-Creek  Railroad  was  finished  to  Shaffer 
farm,  which  immediately  became  a  station  of  great  importance.  From  one 
house  and  barn  the  place  expanded  in  sixty  days  to  a  town  of  three-thousand 
population.  And  such  a  town  !  Sixteen-hundred  teams,  mainly  employed  to 
draw  oil  from  the  wells  down  the  creek,  supported  the  stables,  boarding-houses 
and  hotels  that  sprang  up  in  a  night.  Every  second  door  opened  into  a  bar- 
room. The  buildings  were  "balloon  frames,"  constructed  entirely  of  boards, 
erected  in  a  few  hours  and  liable  to  collapse  on  the  slightest  pretext.  Houses 
of  cards  would  be  about  as  comfortable  and  substantial.  Outdo  Hezekiah,  by 
rolling  back  time's  dial  thirty-one  years,  and  in  fancy  join  the  crowd  headed  for 
Shaffer  six  months  after  the  advent  of  the  railway. 

Start  from  Corry,  ''the  city  of  stumps,"  with  the  Downer  refinery  and  a  jum- 
ble of  houses  thrown  around  the  fields.  Here  the  Atlantic  &  Great-Western, 


THE    VALLEY  OF  PETROLEUM,  in 

the  Philadelphia  &  Erie  and  the  Oil-Creek  Railroads  meet.  The  station  will 
not  shelter  one-half  the  motley  assemblage  bound  for  Oildom.  "  Mother  Gary- 
is  plucking  her  geese"  and  snow-flakes  are  dropping  thickly.  Speculators  from 
the  eastern  cities,  westerners  in  quest  of  "  a  good  thing,"  men  going  to  work 
at  the  wells,  capitalists  and  farmers,  adventurers  and  drummers  clamor  for 
tickets.  It  is  the  reverse  of  "  an  Adamless  Eden,"  for  only  three  women  are  to 
be  seen.  At  last  the  train  backs  to  the  rickety  depot  and  a  wild  struggle  com- 
mences. Scrambling  for  the  elevated  cars  in  New  York  or  Chicago  is  a  feeble 
movement  compared  with  this  frantic  onslaught.  Courtesy  and  chivalry  are 
forgotten  in  the  rush.  Men  swarm  upon  the  steps,  clog  the  platforms,  pack  the 
baggage-car,  thrust  the  women  aside,  stick  to  the  cowcatcher  and  clamber  on 
the  roofs  of  the  coaches.  Over  the  roughest  track  on  earth,  which  winds  and 
twists  and  skirts  the  creek  most  of  the  way,  the  train  rattles  and  jolts  and 
pitches.  The  conductor's  job  is  no  sinecure,  as  he  squeezes  through  the  dense 
mass  that  leaves  him  without  sufficient  elbow-room  to  ' '  punch  in  the  presence 
of  the  passenjare."  Derricks — tall,  gaunt  skeletons,  pickets  of  the  advancing 
army — keep  solemn  watch  here  and  there,  the  number  increasing  as  Titusville 
comes  in  sight. 

A  hundred  people  get  off  and  two-hundred  manage  somehow  to  get  on. 
Past  the  Drake  well,  past  a  forest  of  derricks,  past  steep  cliffs  and  tortuous 
ravines  the  engineer  speeds  the  train.  Did  you  ever  think  what  a  weight  of 
responsibility  rests  upon  the  brave  fellow  in  the  locomotive-cab,  whose  clear 
eye  looks  straight  along  the  track  and  whose  steady  hand  grasps  the  throttle? 
Should  he  relax  his  vigilance  or  lose  his  nerve  one  moment,  scores  of  lives 
might  be  the  fearful  penalty.  A  short  stop  at  Miller  Farm,  a  whiff  of  refinery- 
smells  and  in  five  minutes  Shaffer  is  reached.  The  board-station  is  on  the  right 
hand,  landings  on  the  left  form  a  semi-circle  hundreds  of  feet  in  length,  freight- 
ers jam  the  double  track  and  warehouses  dot  the  bank.  The  flat — about  thirty 
rods  wide — contains  the  mushroom  town,  bristling  with  the  undiluted  essence  of 
petroleum-activity.  Three-hundred  teamsters  are  unloading  barrels  of  oil  from 
wagons  dragged  by  patient,  abused  horses  and  mules  through  miles  of  greasy, 
clayey  mud.  Everything  reeks  with  oil.  It  pervades  the  air,  saturates  clothes 
and  conversation,  floats  on  the  muddy  scum  and  fills  lungs  and  nostrils  with  its 
peculiar  odor.  One  cannot  step  a  yard  without  sinking  knee-deep  in  deceptive 
mire  that  performs  the  office  of  a  boot-jack  if  given  "a  ghost  of  a  show." 
Christian's  Slough  of  Despond  wasn't  a  circumstance  to  this  adhesive  paste, 
which  engulfs  unwary  travels  to  their  trouser-pockets  and  begets  a  dreadful 
craving  for  roads  not 

"  Wholly  unclassable, 

Almost  impassable, 

Scarcely  jackassable." 

The  trip  of  thirty-five  miles  has  shaken  breakfast  clear  down  to  the  pil- 
grims' boots.  Out  of  the  cars  the  hungry  passengers  tumble  as  frantically  as 
they  had  clambered  in  and  break  for  the  hotels  and  restaurants.  A  dollar  pays 
for  a  dinner  more  nearly  first-class  in  price  than  in  quality.  The  narrow  hall 
leading  to  the  dining-room  is  crammed  with  men — Person's  Hotel  fed  four-hun- 
dred a  day— waiting  their  turn  for  vacant  chairs  at  the  tables.  Bolting  the  meal 
hurriedly,  the  next  inquiry  is  how  to  get  down  the  creek.  There  are  no  coupes, 
no  prancing  steeds,  no  stages,  no  carriages  for  hire.  The  hoarse  voice  of  a 
hackman  would  be  sweeter  music  than  Beethoven's  "Moonlight  Sonata  "or 
Mendelssohn's  "Wedding  March."  Horseback-riding  is  impracticable  and 


ii2  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

walking  seems  the  only  alternative.  To  wade  and  flounder  twelve  miles — Oil 
City  is  that  far  off — is  the  dreary  prospect  that  freezes  the  blood.  Hark  !  In 
strident  tones  a  fierce-looking  fellow  is  shouting  :  "  Packet-boat  for  Oil  City  ! 
This  way  for  the  packet-boat!  Packet-boat!  Packet-boat!"  Visions  of  a 
pleasant  jaunt  in  a  snug  cabin  lure  you  to  the  landing.  The  "packet-boat" 
proves  to  be  an  oily  scow,  without  sail,  engine,  awning  or  chair,  which  horses 
have  drawn  up  the  stream  from  Oil  City.  It  will  float  back  at  the  rate  of  three 
miles  an  hour  and  the  fare  is  three-fifty  !  The  name  and  picture  of  "  Pomeroy's 
Express,"  the  best  of  these  nondescript  Oil-Creek  vessels,  will  bring  a  smile 
and  warm  the  cockles  of  many  an  old-timer's  heart ! 


"  POMEROY'S  EXPRESS"  BETWEEN  SHAFFER  AND  OIL  CITY. 

Perhaps  you  decide  to  stay  all  night  at  Shaffer  and  start  on  foot  early  in 
the  morning.  A  chair  in  a  room  thick  with  tobacco-smoke,  or  a  quilt  in  a 
corner  of  the  bar,  is  the  best  you  can  expect.  By  rare  luck  you  may  happen 
to  pre-empt  a  half-interest  in  a  small  bed,  tucked  with  two  or  three  more  in  a 
closet-like  apartment.  Your  room-mates  talk  of  "  flowing  wells — five-hundred- 
thousand  dollars — third  sand — big  strike — rich  in  a  week — thousand-dollars  a 
day,"  until  you  fall  asleep  to  dream  of  wells  spouting  seas  of  mud  and  hapless 
wights  wading  in  greenbacks  to  their  waists.  Awaking  cold  and  unrefreshed, 
your  brain  fuddled  and  your  thoughts  confused,  you  gulp  a  breakfast  of  "  ham 
'n  eggs  'n  fried  potatoes  'n  coffee  "  and  prepare  to  strike  out  boldly.  Encased 
in  rubber-boots  that  reach  above  the  thighs,  you  choose  one  of  the  two  paths — 
each  worse  than  the  other — pray  for  sustaining  grace  and  begin  the  toilsome 
journey.  Having  seen  the  tips  of  the  elephant's  ears,  you  mean  to  see  the  end 
of  his  tail  and  be  able  to  estimate  the  bulk  of  the  animal.  Night  is  closing  in 
as  you  round  up  at  your  destination,  exhausted  and  mud-coated  to  the  chin. 
But  you  have  traversed  a  region  that  has  no  duplicate  "in  heaven  above,  or 
in  the  earth  beneath,  or  in  the  waters  under  the  earth,"  and  feel  recompensed  a 


THE    VALLEY  OF  PETROLEUM.  113 

thousand-fold  for  the  fatigue  and  exposure.  Were  your  years  to  exceed 
Thomas  Parr's  and  Methuselah's  combined,  you  will  never  again  behold  such 
a  scene  as  the  Oil-Creek  valley  presented  in  the  days  of  "the  middle  passage ' 
between  Shaffer  and  Oil  City.  Rake  it  over  with  a  fine-comb,  turn  on  the 
X-rays,  dig  and  scrape  and  root  and  to-day  you  couldn't  find  a  particle  of 
Shaffer  as  big  as  a  toothpick  !  When  the  railroad  was  extended  the  buildings 
were  torn  down  and  carted  to  the  next  station. 

Widow  Sanney's  hundred-acre  farm,  south  of  the  Shaffer,  had  three  refin 
eries  and  a  score  of  unremunarative  wells.  David  Gregg's  two-hundred  acres 
on  the  west  side  of  Oil  Creek,  followed  suit  with  forty  non-paying  wells,  three 
that  yielded  oil  and  the  Victoria  and  Continental  refineries.  The  McCoy  well, 
the  first  put  down  below  the  Drake,  at  two-hundred  feet  averaged  fifteen 
barrels  a  day  from  March  until  July,  1860.  Fire  burning  the  rig,  the  well  was 
drilled  to  five-hundred  feet  and  proved  dry.  R.  P.  Beatty  sold  his  two-hundred 
acres  on  Oil  Creek  and  Hemlock  Run  to  the  Clinton  Oil-Company  of  New 
York,  a  bunch  of  medium  wells  repaying  the  investment.  James  Farrell,  a 
teamster,  for  two-hundred  dollars  purchased  a  thirty-acre  bit  of  rough  land 
south  of  Beatty,  on  the  east  side  of  Oil  Creek  and  Bull  Run,  the  extreme 
south-west  corner  of  Allegheny — now  Oil  Creek — township.  In  the  spring  of 
1860  Orange  Noble  leased  sixteen  acres  for  six  hundred  dollars  and  one-quarter 
royalty.  Jerking  a  "  spring-pole  "  five  months  sank  a  hole  one-hundred-and- 
thirty  feet,  without  a  symptom  of  greasiness,  and  the  well  was  neglected  nearly 
three  years.  The  "third  sand"  having  been  found  on  the  creek,  the  holders 
of  the  Farrell  lease  decided  to  drill  the  old  hole  deeper.  George  B.  Delamater 
and  L.  L.  Lamb  were  associated  with  Noble  in  the  venture.  They  contracted 
with  Samuel  S.  Fertig,  of  Titusville,  whose  energy  and  reliability  had  gained 
the  good-will  of  operators,  to  drill  about  five-hundred  feet.  Fertig  went  to 
work  in  April  of  1863,  using  a  ten-horse  boiler  and  engine  and  agreeing  to  take 
one-sixteenth  of  the  working-interest  as  part  payment.  He  had  lots  of  the 
push  that  long  since  placed  him  in  the  van  as  a  successful  producer,  enjoying 
a  well-earned  competence.  Early  in  May,  at 
four-hundred-and-fifty  feet,  a  "crevice"  of 
unusual  size  was  encountered.  Fearing  to 
lose  his  tools,  the  contractor  shut  down  for 
consultation  with  the  well-owners.  Noble 
was  at  Pittsburg  on  a  hunt  for  tubing,  which 
he  ordered  from  Philadelphia.  The  well 
stood  idle  two  weeks,  waiting  for  the  tubing, 
surface-water  vainly  trying  to  fill  the  hole. 

On  the  afternoon  of  May  twenty-seventh, 
1863,  everything  was  ready.  "Start  her 
slowly, ' '  Noble  shouted  from  the  derrick  to 
Fertig,  who  stood  beside  the  engine  and 
turned  on  the  steam.  The  rods  moved  up 
and  down  with  steady  stroke,  bringing  a 
stream  of  fresh  water,  which  it  was  hoped 

.     .  ,  _.  .  SAMUEL   S.    FERTIG. 

a  day  s  pumping  might  exhaust.     Then  it 

would  be  known  whether  two  of  the  owners— Noble  and  Delamater— had 
acted  wisely  on  May  fifteenth  in  rejecting  one-hundred-thousand  dollars  for 
one-half  of  the  well.  Noble  went  to  an  eating-house  near  by  for  a  lunch.  He 
was  munching  a  sandwich  when  a  boy  at  the  door  bawled  :  "Golly!  Ain't 


ii4  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE- OIL. 

that  well  spittin'  oil?"  Turning  around,  he  saw  a  column  of  oil  and  water 
rising  a  hundred  feet,  enveloping  the  trees  and  the  derrick  in  dense  spray ! 
The  gas  roared,  the  ground  fairly  shook  and  the  workmen  hastened  to  extin- 
guish the  fire  beneath  the  boiler.  The  "  Noble  well,"  destined  to  be  the  most 
profitable  ever  known,  had  begun  its  dazzling  career  at  the  dizzy  figure  of 
three-thousand  barrels  a  day  ! 

Crude  was  four  dollars  a  barrel,  rose  to  six,  to  ten,  to  thirteen  !  Compute 
the  receipts  from  the  Noble  well  at  these  quotations — twelve-thousand,  eighteen- 
thousand,  thirty-thousand,  thirty-nine-thousand  dollars  a  day  !  Sinbad's  fabled 
Valley  of  Diamonds  was  a  ten-cent  side-show  in  comparison  with  the  actual 
realities  of  the  valley  of  Oil  Creek. 

Soon  the  foaming  volume  filled  the  hollow  close  to  the  well  and  ran  into 
the  creek.  What  was  to  be  done?  In  the  forcible  jargon  of  a  driller  :  "  The 
divil  wuz  to  pay  an'  no  pitch  hot!"  For  two-hundred  dollars  three  men 
crawled  through  the  blinding  shower  and  contrived  to  attach  a  stop-cock  device 
to  the  pipe.  By  sunset  a  seven-hundred-barrel  tank  was  overflowing.  Boat- 
men down  the  creek,  notified  to  come  at  once  for  all  they  wanted  at  two  dollars 
a  barrel,  by  midnight  took  the  oil  directly  from  the  well.  Next  morning  the 
stream  was  turned  into  a  three-thousand-barrel  tank,  filling  it  in  twenty-one 
hours  !  Sixty-two-thousand  barrels  were  shipped  and  fifteen-thousand  tanked, 
exclusive  of  leakage  and  waste,  in  thirty  days.  Week  after  week  the  flow 
continued,  declining  to  six-hundred  barrels  a  day  in  eighteen  months.  The 
superintendent  of  the  Noble  &  Delamater  Oil  Company— organized  in  1864 
with  a  million  capital — in  February  of  1865  recommended  pulling  out  the  tubing 
and  cleaning  the  well.  Learning  of  this  intention,  Noble  and  Delamater 
unloaded  their  stock  at  or  above  par.  The  tubing  was  drawn,  the  well 
pumped  fifteen  barrels  in  two  days,  came  to  a  full  stop  and  was  abandoned  as 
a  dry-hole  ! 

The  production  of  this  marvelous  gusher — over  seven-hundred-thousand 
barrels — netted  upwards  of  four-million  dollars  !  One-fourth  of  this  lordly  sum 
went  to  the  children  of  James  Farrell — he  did  not  live  to  see  his  land  developed 
—James,  John,  Nelson  and  their  sister,  now  Mrs.  William  B.  Sterrett,  of  Titus- 
ville.  Noble  and  Delamater  owned  one-half  the  working-interest,  less  the  six- 
teenth assigned  to  S.  S.  Fertig,  who  bought  another  sixteenth  from  John  Farrell 
while  drilling  the  well  and  sold  both  to  William  H.  Abbott  for  twenty-seven- 
thousand  dollars.  Ten  persons — L.  L.  Lamb,  Solomon  and  W.  H.  Noble,  Rev. 
L.  Reed,  James  and  L.  H.  Hall,  Charles  and  Thomas  Delamater,  G.  T.  Church- 
hill  and  Rollin  Thompson — held  almost  one-quarter.  Even  this  fractional  claim 
gave  each  a  splendid  income.  The  total  outlay  for  the  lease  and  well— not  quite 
four-thousand  dollars — was  repaid  one-thousand  times  in  twenty  months  !  Is  it 
surprising  that  men  plunged  into  speculations  which  completely  eclipsed  the 
South-Sea  Bubble  and  Law's  Mississippi-Scheme?  Is  it  any  wonder  that  multi- 
tudes were  eager  to  stake  their  last  dollar,  their  health,  their  lives,  their  very 
souls  on  the  chance  of  such  winnings  ? 

Thirteen  wells  were  drilled  on  the  Farrell  strip.  The  Craft  had  yielded  a 
hundred-thousand  barrels  and  was  doing  two-hundred  a  day  when  the  seed-bag 
burst,  flooding  the  well  with  water  and  driving  the  oil  away.  The  Mulligan 
and  the  Commercial  did  their  share  towards  making  the  territory  the  finest 
property  in  Oildom,  with  third  sand  on  the  flats  and  in  the  ravine  of  Bull  Run 
forty  feet  thick.  Not  a  fragment  of  tanks  or  derricks  is  left  to  indicate  that 
twenty  fortunes  were  acquired  on  the  desolate  spot,  once  the  scene  of  tremen- 


THE    VALLEY  OF  PETROLEUM.  115 

dous  activity,  more  coveted  than  Naboth's  vineyard  or  Jason's  Golden  Fleece. 
On  the  Caldwell  farm  of  two-hundred  acres,  south  of  the  Farrell,  twenty-five 
or  thirty  wells  yielded  largely.  The  Caldwell,  finished  in  March  of  1863,  at  the 
north-west  corner  of  the  tract,  flowed  twelve-hundred  barrels  a  day  for  six 
weeks.  Evidently  deriving  its  supply  from  the  same  pool,  the  Noble  well  cut 
this  down  to  four-hundred  barrels.  A  demand  for  one-fourth  the  output  of  the 
Noble,  enforced  by  a  threat  to  pull  the  tubing  and  destroy  the  two,  was  settled 
by  paying  one-hundred-and-forty-five-thousand  dollars  for  the  Caldwell  well 
and  an  acre  of  ground.  "Growing  smaller  by  degrees  and  beautifully  less," 
within  a  month  of  the  transfer  the  Caldwell  quit  forever,  drained  as  dry  as  the 
bones  in  Ezekiel's  vision  ! 

Hon.  Orange  Noble,  the  son  of  a  New- York  farmer,  dealt  in  sheep  and 
cattle,  married  in  1841  and  in  1852  removed  to  Randolph,  Crawford  county,  Pa. 
He  farmed,  manufactured  "shooks  "  and  in  1855  opened  a  store  at  Townville 
in  partnership  with  George  B.  Delamater.  The  partners  and  L.  L.  Lamb 
inspected  the  Drake  well  in  October  of  1859,  secured  leases  on  the  Stackpole 
and  Jones  farms  and  drilled  two  dry-holes.  Other  wells  on  different  farms  in 
1860-1  resulted  similarly,  but  the  Noble  compensated  richly  for  these  failures. 
The  firm  wound  up  the  establishment  at  Townville  in  1863,  squared  petroleum- 
accounts,  and  in  1864  Mr.  Noble  located  at  Erie.  There  he  organized  banks, 
erected  massive  blocks,  served  as  mayor  three  terms,  built  the  first  grain 
elevator  and  contributed  greatly  to  the  prosperity  of  the  city.  Blessed  with 
ample  wealth — the  Noble  well  paid  him  eight-hundred-thousand  dollars — a  vig- 
orous constitution  and  the  regard  of  his  fellows,  he  has  lived  to  a  ripe  age  to 
enjoy  the  fruits  of  his  patient  industry  and  remarkable  success. 

Hon.  George  B.  Delamater,  whose  parents  settled  in  Crawford  county  in 
1822,  studied  law  and  was  admitted  to  the  Meadville  bar  in  1847.  He  published 
a  newspaper  at  Youngsville,  Warren  county,  two  years  and  in  1852  started  in 
business  at  Townville.  Clients  were  not  plentiful  in  the  quiet  village,  where  a 
lawsuit  was  a  luxury,  and  the  young  attorney  found  boring  juries  much  less 
remunerative  than  he  afterwards  found  boring 
oil-wells.  Returning  to  Meadville  in  1864,  with 
seven-hundred-thousand  dollars  and  some 
real-estate  at  his  command,  he  built  the  mag- 
nificent Delamater  Block,  opened  a  bank,  pro- 
moted many  important  enterprises  and  en- 
gaged actively  in  politics .  Selected  to  oppose 
George  K.  Anderson — he,  too,  had  a  bar'l — 
for  the  State  Senate  in  1869,  Delamater  carried 
off  the  prize.  It  was  a  case  of  Greek  meeting 
Greek.  Money  flowed  like  water,  Anderson 
spending  thirty-thousand  dollars  and  his 
opponent  twenty-eight-thousand  on  the  pri- 
maries alone !  This  was  the  beginning  of 
the  depletion  of  the  Delamater  fortune  and 

the  political  demoralization  that  scandalized  GEQRGE  w  DELAMATER. 

Crawford  county  for  years.      Mr.    Delamater 

served  one  term,  declined  to  run  again  and  Anderson  succeeded  him.  His 
son,  George  W. ,  a  young  lawyer  of  ability  and  superior  address,  entered  the 
lists  and  was  elected  Mayor  of  Meadville  and  State  Senator.  He  married  an 
accomplished  lady,  occupied  a  brick-mansion,  operated  at  Petrolia,  practiced 


n6  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OTL. 

law  and  assisted  in  running  the  bank.  Samuel  B.  Dick  headed  a  faction  that 
opposed  the  Delamaters  bitterly.  Nominated  for  Governor  of  Pennsylvania  in 
1890,  George  W.  Delamater  was  defeated  by  Robert  E.  Pattison.  He  con- 
ducted an  aggressive  campaign,  visiting  every  section  of  the  state  and  winning 
friends  by  his  frank  courtesy  and  manly  bearing.  Ruined  by  politics,  unable 
longer  to  stand  the  drain  that  had  been  sapping  its  resources,  the  Delamater 
Bank  suspended  two  weeks  after  the  gubernatorial  election.  The  brick-bloc^ 
the  homes  of  the  parents  and  the  sons,  the  assets  of  the  concern — mere  drops 
in  the  bucket — met  a  trifling  percentage  of  the  liabilities.  Property  was  sacri- 
ficed, suits  were  entered  and  dismissed,  savings  of  depositors  were  swept  away 
and  the  failure  entailed  a  host  of  serious  losses.  The  senior  Delamater  went 
to  Ohio  to  start  life  anew  at  seventy-one,  George  W.  journeyed  to  Seattle  and 
quickly  gathered  a  law-practice.  That  he  will  regain  wealth  and  honor,  pay  off 
every  creditor  and  some  day  represent  his  district  in  Congress  those  who  know 
him  best  are  not  unwilling  to  believe.  The  fall  of  the  Delamater  family — the 
beggary  of  the  aged  father — the  crushing  of  the  son's  honorable  ambition— the 
exile  from  home  and  friends— the  suffering  of  innocent  victims — all  these  illus- 
trate the  sad  reverses  which,  in  the  oil-region,  have  "come,  not  single  spies, 
but  in  battalions." 

James  Bonner,  son  of  an  Ohio  clergyman  and  book-keeper  for  Noble  & 
Delamater,  lodged  in  the  firm's  new  office  beside  the  well.  Seized  with  typhoid 
fever,  his  recovery  was  hopeless.  The  office  caught  fire,  young  Bonner's 
father  carried  him  to  the  window,  a  board  was  placed  to  slide  him  down  and 
he  expired  in  a  few  moments.  His  father,  overcome  by  smoke,  was  rescued 
with  difficulty  ;  his  mother  escaped  by  jumping  from  the  second  story. 

James  Foster  owned  sixty  acres  on  the  west  side  of  Oil  Creek,  opposite  the 
Farrell  and  Caldwell  tracts.  The  upper  half,  extending  over  the  hill  to  Pioneer 
Run,  he  sold  to  the  Irwin  Petroleum  Company  of  Philadelphia,  whose  Irwin 
well  pumped  two-hundred  barrels  a  day.  The  Porter  well,  finished  in  May  of 
1864,  flowed  all  summer,  gradually  declining  from  two-hundred  barrels  to 
seventy  and  finally  pumping  twenty.  Other  wells  and  a  refinery  paid  good 
dividends.  J.  W.  Sherman,  of  Cleveland,  leased  the  lower  end  of  the  farm  and 
bounced  the  "spring-pole"  in  the  winter  of  1861-2.  His  wife's  money  and 
his  own  played  out  before  the  second  sand  was  penetrated.  It  was  impossible 
to  drill  deeper  "by  hand-power."  A  horse  or  an  engine  must  be  had  to  work 
the  tools.  "Pete,"  a  white,  angular  equine,  was  procured  for  one-sixteenth 
interest  in  the  well.  The  task  becoming  too  heavy  for  "Pete,"  another  six- 
teenth was  traded  to  William  Avery  and  J.  E.  Steele  for  a  small  engine  and 
boiler.  Lack  of  means  to  buy  coal— an  expensive  article,  sold  only  for  "spot 
cash"— caused  a  week's  delay.  The  owners  of  the  well  could  not  muster 
"long  green  "  to  pay  for  one  ton  of  fuel !  For  another  sixteenth  a  purchaser 
grudgingly  surrendered  eighty  dollars  and  a  shot-gun  !  The  last  dollar  had 
been  expended  when,  on  March  sixteenth,  1862— just  in  season  to  celebrate  St. 
Patrick's  day— the  tools  punctured  the  third  sand.  A  "crevice"  was  hit,  the 
tools  were  drawn  out  and  in  five  minutes  everything  swam  in  oil.  The  Sherman 
well  was  flowing  two-thousand  barrels  a  day !  Borrowing  the  phrase  of  the 
parrot  stripped  of  his  feathers  and  blown  five-hundred  feet  by  a  powder-explo- 
sion, people  might  well  exclaim  :  "This  beats  the  Old  Scratch  !" 

To  provide  tankage  was  the  first  concern.  Teams  were  dispatched  for 
lumber  and  carpenters  hurried  to  the  scene.  Near  the  well  a  mudhole,  between 
two  stumps,  could  not  be  avoided.  In  this  one  of  the  wagons  stuck  fast  and 


THE   VALLEY  OF  PETROLEUM. 


117 


had  to  be  pried  out.  John  A.  Mather  chanced  to  come  along  with  his  photo- 
graphic apparatus.  The  men  posed  an  instant,  the  horses  "looked  pleasant," 
the  wagon  didn't  stir  and  he  secured  the  artistic  picture  reproduced  here  thirty- 
four  years  after.  It  is  an  interesting  souvenir  of  former  times— times  that 
deserve  the  best  work  of  pen  and  pencil,  camera  and  brush,  "  to  hold  them  in 
everlasting  remembrance." 


WELL  IN  1862. 


The  Sherman  well  "whooped  it  up"  bravely,  averaging  nine-hundred 
barrels  daily  for  two  years  and  ceasing  to  spout  in  February  of  1864.  Pumping 
restored  it  to  seventy-five  barrels,  which  dwindled  to  six  or  eight  in  1867,  when 
fire  consumed  the  rig  and  the  veteran  was  abandoned.  The  product  sold  at 
prices  ranging  from  fifty  cents  to  thirteen  dollars  a  barrel,  the  total  aggregating 
seventeen-hundred-thousand  dollars!  How  was  that  for  a  return?  It  meant 
one-hundred-thousand  dollars  for  the  man  who  traded  "Pete,"  one-hundred- 
thousand  for  the  man  who  invested  eighty  dollars  and  a  rusty  gun,  one-hundred- 
thousand  for  the  two  men  who  furnished  the  second-hand  engine,  and  a  million 
—deducting  the  royalty — for  the  m~n  who  had  neither  cash  nor  credit  for  a 
load  of  coal ! 

None  of  the  other  fifty  or  sixty  wells  on  the  Foster  farm,  some  of  them 
Sherman's,  was  particularly  noteworthy.  The  broad  flat,  the  sluggish  stream 
and  the  bluffs  across  the  creek  remain  as  in  da\  s  of  yore,  but  the  wells,  the 
shanties,  the  tanks,  the  machinery  and  the  workmen  have  vanished.  Sherman, 
hale  and  hearty  to-day,  struck  a  spouter  in  Kentucky,  operated  two  or  three 
years  at  Bradford  and  took  up  his  abode  at  Warren.  It  is  a  treat  to  hear  his 
vivid  descriptions  of  life  on  Oil  Creek  in  the  infancy  of  developments — life 
crowded  with  transformations  far  surpassing  the  fantastic  changes  of  "  A  Mid- 
summer Night's  Dream." 

Among  the  teamsters  who  hauled  oil  from  the  Sherman  well  in  its  prime 
was  "Con"  O'Donnell,  a  fun-loving,  impulsive  Irishman.  He  saved  his 


ii8  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

earnings,  secured  leases  for  himself,  owned  a  bevy  of  wells  at  Kane  City  and 
operated  in  the  Clarion  field.  Marrying  a  young  lady  of  Ellicottville,  N.  Y., 
his  early  home,  he  lived  some  years  at  Foxburg  and  St.  Petersburg.  He  was 
the  rarest  of  practical  jokers  and  universally  esteemed.  Softening  of  the  brain 
afflicted  him  for  years,  death  at  last  stilling  as  warm  and  kindly  a  heart  as  ever 
throbbed  in  a  manly  breast.  "Con  "  often  regaled  me  with  his  droll  witticisms 
as  we  rode  or  drove  through  the  Clarion  district.  "  Peace  to  his  ashes." 

Late  in  the  fall  of  1859,  "when  th'  frost  wuz  on  th'  punkin'  an'  th'  bloom 
wuz  on  th'  rye,"  David  McElhenny  sold  the  upper  and  lower  McElhenny  farms — 
one-hundred-and-eighty  acres  at  the  south-east  corner  of  Cherrytree  township — 
to  Captain  A.  B.  Funk,  for  fifteen-hundred  dollars  and  one-fourth  of  the  oil. 
Joining  the  Foster  farm  on  the  north,  Oil  Creek  bounded  the  upper  tract  on 
the  east  and  south  and  Pioneer  Run  gurgled  through  the  western  side.  Oil 
Creek  flowed  through  the  northern  and  western  sides  of  the  lower  half,  which 
had  the  Espy  farm  on  the  east,  the  Boyd  south  and  the  Benninghoff  north  and 
west.  McElhenny' s  faith  in  petroleum  was  of  the  mustard-seed  order  and  he 
jumped  at  Hussey  &  McBride's  offer  of  twenty-thousand  dollars  for  the  royalty. 
Captain  Funk — he  obtained  the  title  from  running  steamboats  lumbering  on  the 
Youghiogheny  river — in  February  of  1860  commenced  the  first  well  on  the 
lower  McElhenny  farm.  All  spring  and  summer  the  "spring-pole"  bobbed 
serenely,  punching  the  hole  two-hundred-and-sixty  feet,  with  no  suspicion  of 
oil  in  the  first  and  second  sands.  The  Captain,  believing  it  a  rank  failure, 
would  gladly  have  exchanged  the  hole  "for  a  yellow  dog."  His  son,  A.  P. 
Funk,  bought  a  small  locomotive-boiler  and  an  engine  and  resumed  work 
during  the  winter.  Early  in  May,  1861,  at  four-hundred  feet,  a  "pebble  rock" 
— the  "third  sand  " — tested  the  temper  of  the  center-bit.  Hope,  the  stuff  that 
"springs  eternal  in  the  human  breast,"  took  a  fresh  hold.  It  languished  as  the 
tools  bored  thirty,  forty,  fifty  feet  into  the  "pebble"  and  not  a  drop  of  oil 
appeared.  Then  something  happened.  Flecks  of  fcam  bubbled  to  the  top  of 
the  conductor,  jets  of  water  rushed  out,  oil  and  water  succeeded  and  a  huge 
pillar  of  pure  oil  soared  fifty  yards  !  The  Fountain  well  had  tapped  a  fountain 
in  the  rock  ordained  thenceforth  to  furnish  mankind  with  Pennsylvania  petro- 
leum. The  first  well  put  down  to  "the  third  sand,"  and  really  the  first  on  Oil 
Creek  that  flowed  from  any  sand,  it  revealed  oil-possibilities  before  unknown 
and  unsuspected. 

More  tangible  than  the  mythical  Fountain  of  Youth,  the  Fountain  well 
tallied  three-hundred  barrels  a  day  for  fifteen  months.  The  flow  ended  as 
suddenly  as  it  began.  Paraffine  clogged  and  strangled  it  to  death,  sealing  the 
pores  and  pipes  effectually.  A  young  man  ' '  taught  the  young  idea  how  to 
shoot"  at  Steam  Mills,  east  of  Titusville,  where  Captain  Funk  had  lumber- 
mills.  A  visit  to  the  Drake  and  Barnsdall  wells,  in  December  of  1859,  deter- 
mined the  schoolmaster  to  have  an  oil-well  of  his  own.  Funk  liked  the 
earnest,  manly  youth  and  leased  him  five  acres  of  the  upper  McElhenny  farm. 
Plenty  of  brains,  a  brave  heart,  robust  health,  willing  hands  and  thirty  dollars 
constituted  his  capital.  Securing  two  partners,  "  kicking  down  "  started  in  the 
spring  of  1860.  Not  a  sign  of  oil  could  be  detected  at  two-hundred  feet,  and 
the  partners  departed  from  the  field.  Summer  and  the  teacher's  humble 
savings  were  gone.  He  earned  more  money  by  drilling  on  the  Allegheny 
river,  four  miles  above  Oil  City.  While  thus  engaged  the  Fountain  well  revolu- 
tionized the  business  by  "flowing"  from  a  lower  rock.  The  ex-wielder  of  the 
birch — he  had  resigned  the  ferrule  for  the  "spring-pole  " — hastened  to  sink  the 


THE    VALLEY  OF  PETROLEUM. 


119 


deserted  well  to  the  depth  of  Funk's  eye-opener.  The  second  three-hundred- 
barrel  gusher  from  the  third  sand,  it  rivaled  the  Fountain  and  arrived  in  time 
to  help  1861  crimson  the  glorious  Fourth  ! 

Hon.  John  Fertig,  of  Titusville,  the  plucky  schoolmaster  of  1859-60,  has 
been  largely  identified  with  oil  ever  since  his  initiation  on  the  McElhenny  lease. 


The  Fertig  well,  in  which  David  Beatty  and  Michael  Gorman  were  his  partners 
originally,  realized  him  a  fortune.  Born  in  Yenango  county,  on  a  farm  below 
Gas  City,  in  1837,  he  completed  a  course  at  Neilltown  Academy  and  taught 
school  several  terms.  Soon  after  embarking  in  the  production  of  oil  he  formed 
a  partnership  with  the  late  John  W.  Hammond,  which  lasted  until  dissolved  by 
death  twenty  years  later.  Fertig  &  Hammond  operated  in  different  sections 
with  great  success,  carried  on  a  refinery  and  established  a  bank  at  Foxburg. 
Mr.  Fertig  was  Mayor  of  Titusville  three  terms,  School-Controller,  State  Sen- 
ator and  Democratic  candidate  for  Lieutenant-Governor  in  1878.  He  has  been 
vice-president  of  the  Commercial  Bank  from  its  organization  in  1882  and  is 
president  of  the  Titusville  Iron- Works.  Head  of  the  National  Oil-Company,  he 
was  also  chief  officer  of  the  Union  Oil-Company,  an  association  of  refining 
companies.  For  three  years  its  treasurer — 1892-5 — he  tided  the  United  States 
Pipe-Line  Company  over  a  financial  crisis  in  1893.  As  a  pioneer  producer — 
one  of  the  few  survivors  connected  with  developments  for  a  generation — a 
refiner  and  shipper,  banker,  manufacturer  and  business-man,  John  Fertig  is 
most  distinctively  a  representative  of  the  oil-country.  From  first  to  last  he 
has  been  admirably  prudent  and  aggressive,  conservative  and  enterprising  in 
shaping  a  career  with  much  to  cherish  and  little  to  regret. 

Frederick  Crocker  drilled  a  notable  well  on  the  McElhenny,  near  the 
Foster  line,  jigging  the  "spring-pole"  in  1861  and  piercing  the  sand  at  one- 
hundred  and-fifty  feet.     He  pumped  the  well  incessantly  two  months,  getting 
clear  water  for  his  pains.      Neighbors  jeered,  asked  if  he  proposed  to  empty 
9 


120  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

the  interior  of  the  planet  into  the  creek  and  advised  him  to  import  a  Baptist 
colony.  Crocker  pegged  away,  remembering  that  "  he  laughs  best  who  laughs 
last."  One  morning  the  water  wore  a  tinge  of  green.  The  color  deepened, 
the  gas  "cut  loose,"  and  a  stream  of  oil  shot  upwards!  The  Crocker  well 
spurted  for  weeks  at  a  thousand-barrel  clip  and  was  sold  for  sixty-five-thousand 
dollars.  Shutting  in  the  flow,  to  prevent  waste,  wrought  serious  injury.  The 
well  disliked  the  treatment,  the  gas  sought  a  vent  elsewhere,  pumping  coaxed 
back  the  yield  temporarily  to  fifty  barrels  and  in  the  fall  it  yielded  up  the  ghost. 

Bennett  &  Hatch  spent  the  summer  of  1861  drilling  on  a  lease  adjoining  the 
Fountain,  striking  the  third  sand  at  the  same  depth.  On  September  eighteenth 
the  well  burst  forth  with  thirty-three-hundred  barrels  per  day !  This  was 
" confusion  worse  confounded,"  foreigners  not  wanting  "the  nasty  stuff"  and 
Americans  not  yet  aware  of  its  real  value.  The  addition  of  three-thousand 
barrels  a  day  to  the  supply — with  big  additions  from  other  wells — knocked 
prices  to  twenty  cents,  to  fifteen,  to  ten  !  All  the  coopers  in  Oildom  could  not 
make  barrels  as  fast  as  the  Empire  well — appropriate  name — could  fill  them. 
Bradley  &  Son,  of  Cleveland,  bought  a  month's  output  for  five-hundred  dollars, 
loading  one-hundred-thousand  barrels  into  boats  under  their  contract !  The 
despairing  owners,  suffering  from  "an  embarrassment  of  riches,"  tried  to  cork 
up  the  pesky  thing,  but  the  well  was  like  Xantippe,  the  scolding  wife  of  Socrates, 
and  would  not  be  choked  off.  They  built  a  dam  around  it,  but  the  oil  wouldn't 
be  dammed  that  way.  It  just  gorged  the  pond,  ran  over  the  embankment  and 
greased  Oil  Creek  as  no  stream  was  ever  greased  before  !  Twenty-two-hundred 
barrels  was  the  daily  average  in  November  and  twelve-hundred  in  March. 
The  torrent  played  April-fool  by  stopping  without  notice,  seven  months  from 
its  inception.  Cleaning  out  and  pumping  restored  it  to  six-hundred  barrels, 
which  dropped  two-thirds  and  stopped  again  in  1863.  An  "air  blower"  revived 
it  briefly,  but  its  vitality  had  fled  and  in  another  year  the  grand  Empire 
breathed  its  last. 

These  wells  boomed  the  territory  immensely.  Derricks  and  engine-houses 
studded  the  McElhenny  farms,  which  operators  hustled  to  perforate  as  full  of 
holes  as  a  strainer.  To  haul  machinery  from  the  nearest  railroad  doubled  its 
cost.  Pumping  five  to  twenty  barrels  a  day,  when  adjacent  wells  flowed  more 
hundreds  spontaneously,  lost  its  charm  and  most  of  the  small  fry  were  aban- 
doned. Everybody  wanted  to  get  close  to  the  third-sand  spouters,  although 
the  market  was  glutted  and  crude  ruinously  cheap.  A  town — Funkville-  arose 
on  the  northern  end  of  the  upper  farm,  sputtered  a  year  or  two,  then  "folded 
its  tent  like  the  Arabs  and  silently  stole  away."  A  search  with  a  microscope 
would  fail  to  unearth  an  atom  of  Funkville  or  the  wells  that  created  it.  Fresh 
strikes  in  1862  kept  the  fever  raging.  Davis  &  Wheelock's  rattler  daily  poured 
out  fifteen-hundred  barrels.  The  Densmore  triplets,  bunched  on  a  two-acre 
lease,  were  good  for  six-hundred,  four-hundred  and  five-hundred  respectively. 
The  Olmstead,  American,  Canfield,  Aikens,  Burtis  and  two  Hibbard  wells,  of 
the  vintage  of  1863,  rated  from  two-hundred  to  five-hundred  each.  A  band  of 
less  account— thirty  to  one-hundred  barrels — assisted  in  holding  the  daily- 
product  of  the  McElhenny  farms,  from  the  spring  of  1862  to  the  end  of  1863, 
considerably  above  six-thousand  barrels.  The  mockery  of  fate  was  accen- 
tuated by  a  dry-hole  six  rods  from  the  Sherman  and  dozens  of  poor  wells  in  the 
bosom  of  the  big  fellows.  Disposing  of  his  timber-lands  and  saw-mills  in  1863, 
Captain  Funk  built  a  mansion  and  removed  to  Titusville.  Early  in  1864  he  sold 
his  wells  and  oil-properties  and  died  on  August  second,  leaving  an  estate  of 


THE    VALLEY  OF  PETROLEUM.  121 

two-millions.  He  built  schools  and  churches,  dispensed  freely  to  the  needy 
and  was  honest  to  the  core.  Pleased  with  the  work  of  a  clerk,  he  deeded  him 
an  interest  in  the  last  well  he  ever  drilled,  which  the  lucky  young  man  sold  for 
one-hundred-thousand  dollars. 

Almost  simultaneously  with  the  Empire,  in  September  of  1861 ,  the  Buckeye 
well,  on  the  George  P.  Espy  farm,  east  of  lower  McElhenney,  set  off  at  a 
thousand-barrel  jog.  It  was  located  on  a  strip  of  level  ground  too  narrow  for 
tanks,  which  had  to  be  erected  two-hundred  feet  up  the  hill.  The  pressure  of 
gas  sufficed  to  force  the  oil  into  these  tanks  for  a  year.  The  production  fell  to 
eighty  barrels  and  then,  tiring  of  a  climbing  job  that  smacked  of  Sisyphus  and 
the  rolling  stone,  took  a  permanent  rest.  From  this  famous  well  J.  T.  Briggs, 
manager  of  the  Briggs  and  the  Gillettee  Oil-Companies,  shipped  to  Europe  in 
1862  the  first  American  petroleum  ever  sent  across  the  Atlantic.  The  Buckeye 
Belle  stood  about  hip-high  to  its  consort,  a  dozen  other  wells  on  the  Espy  pro- 
duced mildly  and  Northrop  Brothers  operated  a  refinery. 

Improved  methods  of  handling  and  new  uses  for  the  product  advanced 
crude  to  five  dollars  in  the  spring  of  1864.  Operations  encroached  upon  the 
higher  lands,  exploding  the  notion  that  paying  territory  was  confined  to  flats 
bordering  the  streams.  Pioneer  Run,  an  affluent  of  Oil  Creek,  bisecting  the 


N    1864-5. 


western  end  of  the  upper  McElhenney  and  Foster  farms,  panned  out  flatter- 
ingly. Substantial  wells,  yielding  fifteen  barrels  to  three-hundred,  lined  the 
ravine  thickly.  The  town  of  Pioneer  attracted  the  usual  throngs.  David 
Emery,  Lewis  F.  Emery,  Frank  W.  Andrews  and  not  a  few  leading  operators 
resided  there  for  a  time.  The  Morgan  House,  a  rude  frame  of  one  story, 
dished  up  meals  at  which  to  eat  beef-hash  was  to  beefashionable.  Clark  & 
McGowen  had  a  feed-store,  offices  and  warehouses  abounded,  tanks  and  der- 
ricks mixed  in  the  mass  and  boats  loaded  oil  for  refineries  down  the  creek  or 
the  Allegheny  river.  The  characteristic  oil-town  has  faded  from  sight,  only  the 
weather-beaten  railroad-station  and  a  forlorn  iron  tank  staying.  John  Rhodes, 


122  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

the  last  resident,  was  killed  in  February  of  1892  by  a  train.  He  lived  alone  in 
a  small  house  beside  the  track,  which  he  was  crossing  when  the  engine  hit  him, 
the  noisy  waters  in  the  culvert  drowning  the  sound  of  the  cars.  Rhodes  hauled 
oil  in  the  old  days  to  Erie  and  Titusville,  became  a  producer,  met  with  reverses, 
attended  to  some  wells  for  a  company,  worked  a  bit  of  garden  and  felt  inde- 
pendent and  happy. 

Matthew  Taylor,  a  Cleveland  saloonist,  whom  the  sequel  showed  to  be  no 
saloonatic,  took  a  four-hundred-dollar  flyer  at  Pioneer,  on  his  first  visit  to 
Oildom.  A  well  on  the  next  lease  elevated  values  and  Taylor  returned  home 
in  two  weeks  with  twenty-thousand  dollars,  which  subsequent  deals  quad- 
rupled. A  Titusville  laborer — "a  broth  of  a  b'y  wan  year  frum  Oireland"- 
who  stuck  fifty  dollars  into  an  out-of-the-way  Pioneer  lot,  sold  his  claim  in  a 
month  for  five-thousand.  He  bought  a  farm,  sent  across  the  water  for  his 
colleen  and  "they  lived  happily  ever  after."  The  driver  of  a  contractor's 
team,  assigned  an  interest  in  a  drilling-well  for  his  wages,  cleaned  up  thirty, 
thousand  dollars  by  the  transaction  and  went  to  Minnesota.  Could  the  mel- 
lowest melodrama  unfold  sweeter  melodies  ? 

North  and  west  of  the  lower  McElhenny  farm,  at  the  bend  in  Oil  Creek, 
lay  John  BenninghofFs  two  big  blocks  of  land,  through  which  Benninghofif  Run 
flowed  southward.  Pioneer  Run  crossed  the  north-east  corner  of  the  property, 
the  greater  part  of  which  was  on  the  hills.  Five  acres  on  Oil  Creek  and  the 
slopes  on  Pioneer  Run  were  first  developed.  Leases  for  a  cash-bonus  and 
liberal  royalty  were  gobbled  greedily.  Up  Benninghoff  Run  and  back  of  the 
hills  operations  spread.  For  one  piece  of  ground  the  owner  declined  tempting 
offers,  because  he  would  not  permit  his  potato-patch  to  be  trodden  down  ! 
Some  wells  pumped  and  some  flowed  from  twenty-five  to  three-hundred  barrels 
a  day  seven  days  in  the  week.  William  Jenkins,  the  Huidekoper  Oil-Com- 
pany, the  DeKalb  Oil-Company  and  Edward  Harkins  had  regular  bonanzas. 
The  Lady  Herman,  which  Robert  Herman  had  the  politeness  to  name  for  his 
wife,  was  a  genuine  beauty.  The  first  well  ever  cased  and  the  first  pump- 
station — it  hoisted  oil  to  Shaffer — were  on  the  hillside  at  the  mouth  of  Benning- 
hoff Run.  The  platoon  of  wells  in  the  illustration  of  that  locality,  as  they 
appeared  in  1866,  includes  these  and  a  hint  of  the  barn  beside  the  homestead. 
The  busy  scene — pictured  now  for  the  first  time — was  photographed  within  an 
hour  of  its  obliteration.  The  artist  had  not  finished  packing  his  outfit  when 
lightning  struck  one  of  the  derricks  and  a  disastrous  fire  swept  the  hill  as  bare 
as  Old  Mother  Hubbard's  cupboard  !  Wealth  deluged  the  thrifty  land-holder, 
oil  converting  his  broad  acres  into  a  veritable  Golconda.  He  awoke  one  morn- 
ing to  find  himself  rich.  He  was  awakened  one  night  to  find  himself  famous, 
the  newspapers  devoting  whole  pages — under  "scare-heads" — to  the  unpre- 
tending farmer  in  the  southern  end  of  Cherry  tree.  ' '  And  thereby  hangs  a  tale. ' ' 

Suspicious  of  banks,  Benninghoff  stored  his  money  at  home.  Purchasing  a 
cheap  safe,  he  placed  it  in  a  corner  of  the  sitting-room  and  stocked  it  with  a  half- 
million  dollars  in  gold  and  greenbacks !  Cautious  friends  warned  him  to  be 
careful,  lest  thieves  might  "break  through  and  steal."  James  Saeger.  of  Sae- 
gertown,  a  handsome,  popular  young  fellow,  who  sometimes  played  cards,  heard 
of  the  treasure  in  the  flimsy  receptacle.  "Jim"  belonged  to  a  respectable 
family  and  had  been  a  merchant  at  Meadville.  Napoleon  melted  silver  statues 
of  the  apostles  to  put  the  precious  metal  in  circulation  and  Saeger  concluded  to 
give  Benninghoffs  pile  an  airing.  He  spoke  to  George  Miller  of  the  ease  with 
which  the  safe  could  be  cracked  and  engaged  two  Baltimore  burglars,  McDonald 


THE    VALLEY  OF  PETROLEUM.  123 

and  Elliott,  to  manage  the  job.  Jacob  Shoppert,  of  Saegertown,  and  Henry 
Geiger,  who  worked  for  Benninghoff  and  slept  in  the  house,  were  enlisted. 
The  deed,  planned  with  extreme  care  not  to  miss  fire,  was  fixed  for  a  night 
when  Joseph  Benninghoff,  the  son,  was  to  attend  a  dance. 

On  Thursday  evening,  January  sixteenth,  1868,  Saeger,  Shoppert,  McDonald 
and  Elliott  left  Saegertown  in  a  two-horse  sleigh  for  Petroleum  Centre,  twenty- 
nine  miles  distant.  At  midnight  they  knocked  at  Benninghoff's  door.  Geiger 
answered  the  rap  and  was  quickly  gagged,  said  to  be  as  arranged  previously. 
John  Benninghoff,  his  wife  and  daughter  were  bound  and  the  experts  proceeded 
to  open  the  safe.  The  frail  structure  was  soon  ransacked.  The  marauders 
bundled  up  their  booty,  sampled  Mrs.  Benninghoff's  pies,  drank  a  gallon  of 
milk  and  departed  at  their,  leisure,  leaving  the  inmates  of  the  house  securely 
tied.  Joseph  returned  in  an  hour  or  two  and  relieved  the  prisoners  from  their 
unpleasant  predicament.  An  examination  of  the  safe  showed  that  two-hundred- 
and-sixty-fi ve-thousand  dollars  had  been  taken  !  The  bulk  of  this  was  in  gold. 
A  package  of  two-hundred-thousand  dollars,  in  large  bills,  done  up  in  a  brown 
paper,  the  looters  passed  unnoticed  !  The  alarm  was  given,  the  wires  flashed 
the  news  everywhere  and  the  press  teemed  with  sensational  reports.  By  noon 
on  Friday  the  oil-regions  had  been  set  agog  and  people  all  over  the  United 
States  were  talking  of  "the  Great  Benninghoff  Robbery. " 

Saegar  and  his  pals  drove  back  and  stopped  at  Louis  Warlde's  hotel  to 
divide  the  spoils.  McDonald,  Elliott  and  Saeger  took  the  lion's  share,  Geiger 
and  Shoppert  received  smaller  sums  and  VVarlde  accepted  thirteen-hundred 
dollars  for  his  silence.  The  Baltimore  toughs  lingered  in  the  neighborhood  a 
week  and  then  sought  the  wintry  climate  of  Canada,  Saeger  staying  around 
home.  Intense  excitement  prevailed.  Hundreds  of  detectives,  eager  to  gain 
reputation  and  the  reward  of  ten-thousand  dollars,  spun  theories  and  looked 
wise.  Ex-Chief-of-Police  Hague,  of  Pittsburg,  was  especially  alert.  For  three 
months  the  search  was  vain.  George  Miller,  whom  McDonald  wished  to  put 
out  of  the  road  "to  keep  his  mouth  shut,"  in  a  quarrel  with  Saeger  over  a 
game  of  cards,  blurted  out :  "I  know  about  the  Benninghoff  robbery  !"  Saeger 
pacified  Miller  with  a  thousand  dollars,  which  the  latter  scattered  quickly. 
Jacob  Shoppert  was  his  boon  companion  and  the  pair  spent  money  at  a  rate 
that  caused  officers  to  shadow  them.  Shoppert  visited  a  town  on  the  edge  of 
Ohio  and  was  arrested.  Calling  for  a  pen  and  paper,  he  wrote  to  Louis  Warlde, 
the  Saegertown  hotel-keeper,  reproaching  him  for  not  sending  money.  The 
jailer  handed  the  detectives  the  letter,  on  the  strength  of  which  Warlde,  who 
had  started  a  brewery  in  Ohio,  and  Miller  were  arrested.  The  three  were  con- 
victed and  sentenced  to  a  short  term  in  the  penitentiary.  Geiger's  complicity 
in  the  plot  could  not  be  proved  beyond  a  doubt  and  he  was  acquitted.  Officer 
Hague  captured  McDonald  and  Elliott  in  Toronto,  but  Canadian  lawyers  picked 
flaws  in  the  papers  and  they  could  not  be  extradited.  Escaping  to  Europe, 
they  were  heard  of  no  more.  Saeger,  who  had  not  been  suspected  until  after 
his  departure,  went  west  and  was  lost  sight  of  for  many  a  day. 

Three  years  later  a  noted  cattle-king  of  the  Texas-Colorado  trail  entered  a 
saloon  in  Denver  to  treat  a  party  of  friends.  The  bar-tender,  Gus.  Peiflee, 
formerly  of  Meadville,  recognized  the  customer  as  "Jim."  Saeger.  He  tele- 
graphed east  and  Chief-of-Police  Rouse,  of  Titusville,  posted  off  to  Denver 
with  Joseph  Benninghoff.  They  secured  extradition-papers  and  arrested  Saeger, 
who  coolly  remarked  ;  "  You'll  be  a  devilish  sight  older  before  you  see  me  in 
Pennsylvania."  Their  lawyers  informed  them  that  a  hundred  of  Saeger's  cow- 


124 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


boys  were  in  the  city  —  reckless,  lawless  fellows,  certain  to  kill  whoever 
attempted  to  take  him  away.  Rouse  and  Benninghoff  dropped  the  matter  and 
returned  alone.  Saeger  is  living  in  Texas,  prosperous  and  respected.  He  is 
just  in  his  dealings,  a  bountiful  giver,  and  not  long  ago  sent  five-thousand 
dollars  to  the  widow  of  George  Miller.  Perhaps  he  may  yet  turn  up  in  Wash- 
ington as  Congressman  or  United-States  Senator.  This  is  the  story  of  a  robbery 
that  attracted  more  attention  than  the  first  woman  in  bloomers. 

John  Benninghoff  was  born  in  Lehigh  county,  where  his  ancesters  were 
among  the  first  German  immigrants,  on  Christmas  Day,  1801.  His  father, 
Frederick  Benninghoflf,  settled  near  New  Berlin,  Union  county,  in  John's  boy- 
hood. There  the  son  married  Elizabeth  Heise  in  1825  and  in  1828  located  on  a 
farm  near  Oldtown,  Clearfield  county.  Thence  he  removed  to  Venango  county  > 
living  close  to  Cherry  tree  village  four  years.  In  1836  he  bought  a  piece  of  land 
on  the  south  border  of  Cherrytree  township,  near  what  was  to  become  Petro- 
leum Centre.  He  added  to  his  purchase  as  his  means  permitted,  until  he  owned 
about  three-hundred  acres,  with  solid  buildings  and  modern  improvements. 
He  was  in  easy  circumstances  prior  to  the  oil-developments  that  enriched  him. 
Contrary  to  the  general  opinion,  the  robbery  did  not  impoverish  him,  as  one- 
half  the  money  was  untouched.  His 
twelve  children — eight  boys  and  four 
girls — grew  up  and  eight  are  still  liv- 
ing. Selling  his  farms  in  Venango, 
he  removed  to  Greenville,  Mercer 
county,  in  the  spring  of  1868  and  died 
in  March,  1882.  At  his  death  he  had 
sixty-one  grandchil- 
dren and  fifteen 
great-grandchildren. 
He  left  his  family  a 
large  estate.  The 
Benninghoff  farms, 
so  far  as  oil  is  con- 
cerned, are  utterly 
deserted. 

West  and  north 
of  Benninghoff  were 
the  farms  of  John  and 
R.  Stevenson.  On 
the  former,  extending 
south  to  Oil  Creek, 
Reuben  Painter 

drilled  a  well  in  1863.  The  contractor  reporting  it  dry,  Painter  moved  the  ma- 
chinery and  surrendered  the  lease.  He  and  his  brothers  operated  profitably  in 
Butler  and  McKean  counties,  Reuben  dying  at  Olean  in  1892.  In  November  of 
1864  the  Ocean  Oil-Company  of  Philadelphia  bought  John  Stevenson's  lands. 
The  Ocean  well  began  flowing  at  a  six-hundred-barrel  pace  on  September  first, 
1865,  with  the  Arctic  a  good  second.  Fifty  others  varied  from  fifty  to  two- 
hundred  barrels.  Thomas  McCool  built  a  refinery  and  the  farm  paid  the 
company  about  two-thousand  per  cent  !  The  principal  wells  on  both  Steven- 
son tracts  clustered  far  above  the  flats,  the  derricks  and  buildings  resembling 
"a  city  set  on  a  hill."  Major  Mills,  justly  proud  of  his  King  of  the  Hills,  an 


THE    VALLEY  OF  PETROLEUM.  125 

elegant  producer,  delighted  to  visit  it  with  his  wife  and  two  young  daughters, 
one  of  them  now  Mrs.  John  D.  Archbold,  of  New  York.  Painter's  supposed 
dry-hole,  drilled  seventeen  feet  deeper,  gushed  furiously,  proving  to  be  the  best 
well  in  the  collection  !  Said  the  Ocean  manager,  as  he  watched  the  oily  stream 
ascend  "  higher  'n  a  steeple":  "  A  million  dollars  wouldn't  touch  one  side  of 
this  property!"  Sinking  a  four-inch  hole  seventeen  feet  farther  would  have 
given  Reuben  Painter  this  splendid  return  two  years  earlier !  He  missed  a 
million  dollars  by  only  seventeen  feet !  A  Gettysburg  soldier,  from  whose  nose 
a  rifle-ball  shaved  a  piece  of  cuticle  the  size  of  a  pin-head,  wittily  observed : 
"That  shot  came  mighty  near  missing  me!"  Inverting  this  remark,  Painter 
had  cause  to  exclaim  :  "That  million  came  mighty  near  hitting  me  !" 

Although  surrounded  by  farms  unrivaled  as  oil-territory  and  sold  to 
Woods  &  Wright  of  New  York  at  a  fancy  price,  James  Boyd's  seventy-five 
acres  in  Cornplanter  township,  south  of  the  lower  McElhenny,  dodged  the 
petroleum-artery.  The  sands  were  there,  but  so  barren  of  oil  that  nine-tenths 
of  the  forty  wells  did  not  pay  one-tenth  their  cost.  The  Boyd  farm  was  for 
months  the  terminus  of  the  railroad  from  Corry.  Hotels  and  refineries  were 
built  and  the  place  had  a  short  existence,  a  brief  interval  separating  its  lying- 
in  and  its  laying-out. 

G.  W.  McClintock,  in  February  of  1864,  sold  his  two-hundred-acre  farm, 
on  the  west  side  of  Oil  Creek,  midway  between  Titusville  and  Oil  City,  to  the 
Central  Petroleum  Company  of  New  York,  organized  by  Frederic  Prentice  and 
George  H.  Bissell.  This  notable  farm  embraced  the  site  of  Petroleum  Centre 
and  Wild-Cat  Hollow,  a  circular  ravine  three-fourths  of  a  mile  long,  in  which 
two-hundred  paying  wells  were  drilled.  Brown,  Catlin  &  Co. 's  medium  well, 
finished  in  August  of  1861,  was  the  first  on  the  McClintock  tract.  The  com- 
pany bored  a  multitude  of  wells  and  granted  leases  only  to  actual  operators,  for 
one-half  royalty  and  a  large  bonus.  For  ten  one-acre  leases  one-hundred- 
thousand  dollars  cash  and  one-half  the  oil,  offered  by  a  New  York  firm  in  1865, 
were  refused.  The  McClintock  well,  drilled  in  1862,  figured  in  the  thousand- 
barrel  class.  .The  Coldwater,  Meyer,  Clark,  Anderson,  Fox,  Swamp- Angel  and 
Bluff  wells  made  splendid  records.  Altogether  the  Central  Petroleum  Company 
and  the  corps  of  lessees  harvested  at  least  five-millions  of  dollars  from  the 
McClintock  farm  ! 

Aladdin's  lamp  was  a  miserly  glim  in  the  light  of  fortunes  accruing  from 
petroleum.  The  product  of  a  flowing  well  in  a  year  would  buy  a  tract  of  gold- 
territory  in  California  or  Australia  larger  than  the  oil-producing  regions.  Mil 
lions  of  dollars  changed  hands  every  week.  The  Central  Company  staked  off 
a  half  dozen  streets  and  leased  building-lots  at  exorbitant  figures.  Board- 
dwellings,  offices,  hotels,  salocns  and  wells  mingled  promiscuously.  It  mattered 
nothing  that  discomfort  was  the  rule.  Poor  fare,  worse  beds  and  the  worst 
liquors  were  tolerated  by  the  hordes  of  people  who  flocked  to  the  land  of  der- 
ricks. Edward  Fox,  a  railroad  contractor  who  "struck  the  town  "  with  eighty- 
thousand  dollars,  felicitously  baptized  the  infant  Petroleum  Centre.  The 
owners  of  the  ground  opposed  a  borough  organization  and  the  town  traveled 
at  a  headlong  go-as-you-please.  Sharpers  and  prostitutes  flourished,  with  no 
fear  of  human  or  divine  law,  in  the  metropolis  of  rum  and  debauchery.  Dance- 
houses,  beside  which  "  Billy  "  McGlory's  Armory-Hall  and  "The."  Allen's  Ma- 
bille  in  New  York  were  Sunday-school  models,  nightly  counted  their  revelers 
by  hundreds.  In  one  of  these  dens  Gus  Reil,  the  proprietor,  killed  poor  young 
Tail,  of  Rouseville.  Fast  women  and  faster  men  caroused  and  gambled,  cursed 


126 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


and  smoked,  "burning  the  candle  at  both  ends"  in  pursuit  of — pleasure! 
Frequently  the  orgies  eclipsed  Monte  Carlo  —  minus  some  of  the  glitter  —  and 
the  Latin  Quartier  combined.  Some  readers  may  recall  the  night  two  "dead 
game  sports  "  tossed  dice  twelve  hours  for  one-thousand  dollars  a  throw  !  But 
there  was  a  rich  leaven  of  first-class  fellows.  Kindred  spirits,  like  "Sam" 
Woods,  Frank  Ripley,  Edward  Fox  and  Col.  Brady  were  not  hard  to  discover. 
Spades  were  trumps  long  years  ago  for  Woods,  who  has  taken  his  last  trick 


PETR9LEUM     CENTR  £.-  1894 


and  sleeps  in  an  Ohio  grave.  Ripley  is  in  Duluth,  Fox  is  "out  west"  and 
Brady  is  in  Harrisburg.  Captain  Ray  and  A.  D.  Cotton  had  a  bank  that 
handled  barrels  of  money.  For  two  or  three  years  "The  Centre  "—called  that 
for  convenient  brevity — acted  as  a  sort  of  safety-valve  to  blow  off  the  surplus 
wickedness  of  the  oil-regions.  Then  "the  handwriting  on  the  wall"  mani- 
fested itself.  Clarion  and  Butler  speedily  reduced  the  four-thousand  population 


THE    VALLEY  OF  PETROLEUM.  127 

to  a  mere  remnant.  The  local  paper  died,  houses  were  removed  and  the  giddy 
Centre  became  "a  back  number."  The  sounds  of  revelry  were  hushed,  flickering 
lights  no  longer  glared  over  painted  harlots  and  the  streets  were  deserted. 
Bissell's  empty  bank-building,  three  dwellings,  the  public  school,  two  vacant 
churches  and  the  drygoods  box  used  as  a  railway-station—scarcely  enough  to 
cast  a  shadow — are  the  sole  survivors  in  the  ploughed  field  that  was  once  bus- 
tling, blooming,  surging,  foaming  Petroleum  Centre  ! 

Across  the  creek  from  Petroleum  Centre,  on  the  east  side  of  the  stream, 
was  Alexander  Davidson's  farm  of  thirty-eight  acres.  A  portion  of  this  trian- 
gular "speck  on  the  map  "  consisted  of  a  mud-flat,  a  smaller  portion  of  rising 
ground  and  the  remainder  set  edgewise.  Dr.  A.  G.  Egbert,  a  young  physician 
who  had  recently  hung  out  his  shingle  at  Cherrytree  village,  in  1860  negotiated 
for  the  farm.  Davidson  died  and  a  hitch  in  the  title  delayed  the  deal.  Finally 
Mrs.  Davidson  agreed  to  sign  the  deed  for  twenty-six-hundred  dollars  and  one- 
twelfth  the  oil.  Charles  Hyde  paid  the  doctor  this  amount  in  1862  for  one-half 
his  purchase  and  it  was  termed  the  Hyde  &  Egbert  farm.  The  Hollister 
well,  drilled  in  1861,  the  first  on  the  land,  flowed  strongly.  Owing  to  the 
dearness  and  scarcity  of  barrels,  the  oil  was  let  run  into  the  creek  and  the  well 
was  never  tested.  The  lessees  could  not  afford,  as  their  contract  demanded,  to 
barrel  the  half  due  the  land-owners,  because  crude  was  selling  at  twenty-five 
cents  and  barrels  at  three-fifty  to  four  dollars  !  A  company  of  Jerseyites,  in  the 
spring  of  1863,  drilled  the  Jersey  well,  on  the  south  end  of  the  property.  The 
Jersey — it  was  a  Jersey  Lily — flowed  three-hundred  barrels  a  day  for  nine 
months,  another  well  draining  it  early  in  1864.  The  Maple  Shade,  which  cast 
the  majority  into  the  shade  by  its  performance,  touched  the  right  spot  in  the 
third  sand  on  August  fifth,  1863.  Starting  at  one-thousand  barrels,  it  averaged 
eight-hundred  for  ten  months,  dropped  to  fifty  the  second  year  and  held  on 
until  1869.  Fire  on  March  second,  1864,  burned  the  rig  and  twenty-eight  tanks 
of  oil,  but  the  well  kept  flowing  just  the  same,  netting  the  owners  a  clear  profit 
of  fifteen-hundred-thousand  dollars  !  "Do  you  notice  it?"  A  plump  million- 
and-a-half  from  a  corner  of  the  "measly  patch  "  poor  Davidson  offered  in  1860 
for  one-thousand  dollars  !  And  the  Maple  Shade  was  only  one  of  twenty-three 
flowing  wells  on  the  despised  thirty-eight  acres  ! 

Companies  and  individuals  tugged  and  strained  to  get  even  the  smallest 
lease  Hyde  &  Egbert  would  grant.  The  Keystone,  Gettysburg,  Kepler, 
Eagle,  Benton,  Olive  Branch,  Laurel  Hill,  Bird  and  Potts  wells,  not  to  mention 
a  score  of  minor  note,  helped  maintain  a  production  that  paid  the  holders  of 
the  royalty  eight-thousand  dollars  a  day  in  1864-5  !  E.  B.  Grandin  and  William 
C.  Hyde,  partners  of  Charles  Hyde  in  a  store  at  Hydetown,  A.  C.  Kepler  and 
Titus  Ridgway  obtained  a  lease  of  one  acre  on  the  west  side  of  the  lot,  north 
of  the  wells  already  down,  subject  to  three-quarters  royalty.  A  bit  of  romance 
attaches  to  the  transaction.  Kepler  dreamed  that  an  Indian  menaced  him 
with  bow  and  arrow.  A  young  lady,  considered  somewhat  coquettish,  handed 
him  a  rifle  and  he  fired  at  the  dusky  foe.  The  redskin  vamoosed  and  a  stream 
of  oil  burst  forth.  Visiting  his  brother,  who  superintended  the  farm,  he  recog- 
nized the  scene  of  his  dream.  The  lease  was  secured,  on  the  biggest  royalty 
ever  offered.  Kepler  chose  the  location  and  bored  the  Coquette  well.  The 
dream  was  a  nightmare  ?  Wait  and  see. 

Drilling  began  in  the  spring  of  1864  and  the  work  went  merrily  on.  Each 
partner  would  be  entitled  to  one-sixteenth  of  the  oil.  Hyde  &  Ridgway  sold 
their  interest  for  ten-thousand  dollars  a  few  days  before  the  tools  reached  the 


128 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


sand.  This  interest  Dr.  M.  C.  Egbert,  brother  of  the  original  purchaser  of  the 
farm,  next  bought  at  a  large  advance.  He  had  acquired  one-sixth  of  the 
property  in  fee  and  wished  to  own  the  Coquette.  Grandin  and  Kepler  declined 
to  sell.  The  well  was  finished  and  did  not  flow  !  Tubed  and  pumped  a  week, 
gas  checked  its  working  and  the  sucker-rods  were  pulled.  Immediately  the 
oil  streamed  high  in  the  air  !  Twelve-hundred  barrels  a  day  was  the  gauge  at 
first,  settling  to  steady  business  for  a  year  at  eight-hundred.  A  double  row  of 
tanks  lined  the  bank,  connected  by  pipes  to  load  boats  in  bulk.  Oil  was  "  on 
the  jump"  and  the  first  cargo  of  ten-thousand  barrels  brought  ninety-thousand 
dollars,  representing  ten  days'  production !  Three  months  later  Grandin  and 
Kepler  sold  their  one-eighth  for  one-hundred-and-forty-five  thousand  dollars, 
quitting  the  Coquette  with  eighty- thousand  apiece  in  their  pockets.  Kepler 
was  a  dreamer  whom  Joseph  might  be  proud  to  accept  as  a  chum. 

Dr.  M.  C.  Egbert  retained  his  share.     Riches  showered  upon  him.     His 
interests  in  the  land  and  wells  yielded  him  thousands  of  dollars  a  day.      Once 
his  safe  contained,  by  tight  squeezing,  eighteen-hundred-thousand  dollars  in 
currency  and  a  pile  of  government  bonds  !     He  built  a  comfortable  house  and 
lived  on  the  farm.    He  and  his  family  traveled 
over  Europe,  met  shoals  of  titled  folks  and 
saw  all  the  sights.     In  company  with  John 
Brown,  subsequently  manager  of  a  big  cor- 
poration at  Bradford  and  now  a  resident  of 
Chicago,  he  engaged  in  oil-shipments  on  an 
extensive  scale.     To  control  this  branch  of 
the  trade,  as  the  Standard  Oil-Company  has 
since  done  by  combinations  of  capital,  was 
too  gigantic  a  task  for  the  firm  and  failure 
resulted.      The    brainy,  courageous  doctor 
went  to  California,  returned  to  Oildom  and 
jj     operated  in  McKean  county.    He  has  secured 
I     a  foothold  in  the  newer  fields  and  lives  in 
'     Pittsburg,  frank  and  urbane  as  in  the  palm- 
iest days  of  the  Hyde  &  Egbert  farm.     If 
Dame  Fortune  was  strangely  capricious  on 
Oil  Creek,  the  pluck  of  the  men  with  whom  "the  fickle  jade"  played  whirli- 
gig was  surely  admirable. 

Probably  no  parcel  of  ground  in  America  of  equal  size  ever  yielded  a 
larger  return,  in  proportion  to  the  expenditure,  than  the  Hyde  &  Egbert  tract. 
Six  weeks'  production  of  the  Coquette  or  Maple  Shade  would  drill  all  the  wells 
on  the  property.  Charles  Hyde  and  Dr.  A.  G.  Egbert  cleared  at  least  three- 
million  dollars,  the  latter  selling  one-twelfth  of  the  Coquette  alone  for  a  quarter- 
million  cash.  Profits  of  others  interested  in  the  land  and  of  the  lessees  trebled 
this  alluring  sum.  The  aggregate — eight  to  ten  millions — in  silver  dollars  would 
load  a  freight-train  or  build  a  column  twenty  miles  high  !  Fused  into  a  lump 
of  gold,  a  dozen  mules  might  well  decline  the  task  of  drawing  it  a  mile.  Done 
up  into  a  bundle  of  five-dollar  bills,  Hercules  couldn't  budge  the  bulky  package. 
A  "promoter"  of  the  Mulberry-Sellers  brand  wanted  an  owner  of  the  farm, 
when  the  wells  were  at  their  best,  to  launch  the  whole  thing  into  a  stock-com- 
pany with  five-millions  capital.  "Bah!"  responded  the  gentleman,  "five 
millions — did  you  say  five-millions?  Don't  waste  your  breath  talking  until 
you  can  come  around  with  twenty-five  millions  !" 


C.    EGBERT. 


THE   VALLEY  OF  PETROLEUM.  129 

A  native  of  New- York,  born  in  1822,  Charles  Hyde  was  fifteen  when  the 
family  settled  on  a  farm  two  miles  south  of  Titusville,  now  occupied  by  the 
Octave  Oil-Company.  At  twenty  he  engaged  with  his  father  and  two  brothers, 
\V.  C.  and  E.  B.  Hyde,  in  merchandising,  lumbering  and  the  manufacture  of 
salts  from  ashes.  In  1846  he  assumed  charge  of  the  lumber-mills  John  Titus 
sold  the  firm,  originating  the  thrifty  village  of  Hydetown,  four  miles  above 
Titusville.  The  Hydes  frequently  procured  oil  from  the  "springs "on  Oil 
Creek,  selling  it  for  medicine  as  early  as  1840-1.  From  their  Hydetown  store 
Colonel  Drake  obtained  some  tools  and  supplies  Titusville  could  not  furnish. 
Samuel  Grandin,  of  Tidioute,  in  the  spring  of  1860  induced  Charles  Hyde  to 
buy  a  tenth-interest  in  the  Tidioute  and  Warren  Oil-Company  for  one-thousand 
dollars.  The  company's  first  well,  of  which  he  heard  on  his  way  to  Pittsburg 
with  a  raft,  laid  the  foundation  of  Hyde's  great  fortune  in  petroleum.  He 
organized  the  Hydetown  Oil-Company,  which  leased  the  McClintock  farm, 
below  Rouseville,  from  Jonathan  Watson  and  drilled  a  two-hundred-barrel  well 
in  the  summer  of  1860.  Mr.  Hyde  operated  on  the  Clapp  farm,  south  of 
McClintock,  and  at  different  points  on  Oil  Creek  and  the  Allegheny  River.  His 
gains  from  the  Hyde  &  Egbert  farm  approximated  two-millions.  Starting  the 
Second  National  Bank  of  Titusville  in  1865,  he  has  always  been  its  president 
and  chief  stockholder.  In  1869  he  removed  to  Plainfield,  New  Jersey,  culti- 
vating four-hundred  acres  of  suburban  land  and  maintaining  an  elegant  home. 
Plain  of  speech  and  manner,  sternly  honest  and  just,  devoid  of  pride  and  pre- 
tense, Charles  Hyde  is  a  man  of  deeds  and  not  of  words,  a  fine  type  of  the 
pioneer  oil-producers  to  whom  the  world  is  indebted  for  the  petroleum- 
development. 

Dr  Albert  G.  Egbert,  born  in  Mercer  county  in  1828,  belonged  to  a  family 
of  eminent  physicians,  his  grandfather,  father,  two  uncles,  three  brothers  and 
one  son  practicing  medicine.  Predicating  a  future  for  oil  upon  the  Drake  well, 
his  good  judgment  displayed  itself  promptly.  Agreeing  to  purchase  the  Davi- 
son  farm,  which  his  modest  income  at  Cherrytree  would  not  enable  him  to  pay 
for,  his  sale  of  a  half-interest  to  Charles  Hyde  provided  the  money  to  meet  the 
entire  claim.  After  the  wonderful  success  of  that  investment  the  doctor  located 
at  Franklin.  He  carried  on  oil-operations,  farming  and  coal-mining  and  was 
always  active  in  advancing  the  general  welfare.  Elected  to  Congress  against 
immense  odds,  he  served  his  district  most  capably,  attending  sedulously  to  his 
official  duties  and  doing  admirable  work  on  committees.  In  public  and  private 
life  he  was  enterprising  and  liberal,  zealous  for  the  right  and  a  helpful  citizen. 
True  to  his  convictions  and  professions,  he  never  turned  his  back  to  friend  or 
foe.  To  the  steady,  masterful  purpose  of  men  like  Dr.  Egbert  the  oil-industry 
owes  its  rapid  strides  and  commanding  position  as  a  commercial  staple.  His 
demise  on  March  twenty-eighth,  1896,  severs  another  of  the  links  that  bind  the 
eventful  past  and  the  important  present  of  petroleum.  Early  operators  on  Oil. 
Creek  are  reduced  to  a  handful  of  men  whose  heads  are  white  with  the  snows 
no  July  sun  can  melt. 

"  He  has  vvalk'd  the  way  of  nature  ; 
The  setting  sun,  and  music  at  the  close, 
As  the  last  taste  of  sweets,  is  sweetest  last ; 
More  are  men's  ends  mark'd  than  their  lives  before. 
Cowards  die  many  times  before  their  deaths, 
The  valiant  never  taste  of  death  but  once." 

The  rich  pickings  around  Petroleum  Centre  set  many  on  the  straight  cinder- 
path  to  prosperity.  The  three  Phillips  brothers — Isaac,  Thomas  W.  and  Samuel 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


—came  from  Newcastle  to  coin  money  operating  a  farm  south  of  the  Espy. 
Prolific  wells  on  the  Niagara  tract,  Cherrytree  Run,  back  of  the  Benninghoff 
farm,  added  to  their  wealth.  They  cut  a  wide  swath  in  all  the  Pennsylvania 
fields.  Two  of  the  brothers  have  ' '  ascended  to  the  hill  of  frankincense  and  to 
the  mountain  of  myrrh."  The  third,  Thomas  W.,  is  a  millionaire  Congress- 
man. During  the  heated  debates  on  free-silver,  in  1894,  he  scored  the  hit  of 
the  session  by  suggesting  to  convert  each  barrel  of  petroleum  into  legal-tender 
for  a  dollar  and  let  it  go  at  that.  Crude  was  selling  at  sixty  cents,  which  gave 
the  Phillips  proposition  a  point  "sharper  than  a  serpent's  tooth  "  or  a  Demos- 
thenean  philippic.  Dr.  Egbert  offered  Isaac  Phillips  an  interest  in  the  Davison 
farm  in  1862.  The  offer  was  not  accepted  instantly,  Phillips  saying  he  would 
"  consider  it  a  few  days."  Two  weeks  later  he  was  ready  to  close  the  deal,  but 
the  plum  had  fallen  into  the  lap  of  Charles  Hyde  and  diverted  prospective 
millions  into  another  channel. 

George  K.  Anderson  figured  conspicuously  in  this  latitude,  his  receipts  for 
two  years  exceeding  five-thousand  dollars  a  day  !  He  built  a  sumptuous  resi- 
dence at  Titusville,  sought  political  preferment  and  served  a  term  in  the  State 
Senate.  Holding  a  vast  block  of  Pacific-Railroad  stock,  he  was  the  bosom 
friend  of  the  directors  and  trusted  lieutenant  of  William  H.  Kemble,  the  Phila- 
delphia magnate  whose  "addition,  division  and  silence"  gave  him  notoriety. 
He  bought  thousands  of  acres  of  land,  plunged  deeply  into  stocks  and  insured 
his  life  for  three-hundred-and-fifteen-thousand  dollars,  at  that  time  the  largest 
risk  in  the  country.  If  he  sneezed  or  coughed  the  agents  of  the  insurance- 
companies  grew  nervous  and  summoned  a  posse  of  doctors  to  consult  about  the 
case.  Outside  speculations  swamped  him  at  last.  The  stately  mansion,  piles 
of  bonds  and  scores  of  farms  passed  under  the  sheriff's  hammer  in  1880. 
Plucky  and  unconquerable,  Anderson  tried  his  hand  in  the  Bradford  field, 
operating  on  Harrisburg  Run.  The  result  was  discouraging  and  he  entered  an 
insurance-office  in  New  York.  Four  years  ago  he  accepted  a  government- 
berth  in  New  Mexico.  Meeting  him  on  Broadway  the  week  before  he  left 
New  York,  his  buoyant  spirits  seemed  depressed.  He  spoke  regretfully  of 
his  approaching  departure,  yet  hoped  it  might  turn  out  advantageously.  He 
arrived  at  his  post,  sickened  and  died  in  a  few  days,  "  a  stranger  in  a  strange 
land."  Relatives  and  loved  ones  were  far  away  when  he  went  down  into  the 
starless  night  of  the  grave.  No  gentle  wife  or  child  or  valued  friend  was  there 
to  smooth  the  pillow  of  the  dying  man,  to  cool  the  fevered  brow,  to  catch  the 
last  whisper,  to  close  the  glassy  eyes  and  fold  the  rigid  hands  above  the  lifeless 
breast  The  oil-regions  abound  with  pathetic  experiences,  but  none  surpassing 
George  K.  Anderson's.  Wealthy  beyond  the  dreams  of  avarice,  the  courted 
politician,  the  confidant  of  presidents  and  statesmen,  a  social  favorite  in  Wash- 
ington and  Harrisburg,  the  owner  of  a  home  beautiful  as  Claude  Melnotte 
pictured  to  Pauline,  he  drained  the  cup  of  sorrow  and  misfortune.  Reverses 


THE  VALLEY  OF  PETROLEUM.  131 

beset  him,  his  riches  took  wings,  bereavements  bore  heavily  upon  him,  he  was 
glad  to  secure  a  humble  clerkship  and  death  ended  the  sad  scene  in  a  distant 
territory.  Does  not  human  life  contain  more  tears  than  smiles,  more  pain  than 
pleasure,  more  cloud  than  sunshine  in  the  checkered  passage  from  the  cradle  to 
the  tomb  ? 

Frank  W.  Andrews,  born  in  Vermont  and  reared  in  Ohio,  taught  school  in 
Missouri,  hunted  for  gold  at  Pike's  Peak  and  landed  on  Oil  Creek  in  the  winter 
of  1863-4.  Hauling  oil  nine  months  supplied  funds  to  operate  on  Cherrytree 
Run.  He  drilled  four  dry  holes.  One  on  the  McClintock  farm  and  three  more 
on  Pithole  Creek  followed.  This  was  not  a  flattering  start,  but  Andrews  had 
lots  of  sand  and  persistence.  Emerging  from  the  Pithole  excitement  with 
limited  cash  and  unlimited  machinery,  he  returned  to  Oil  Creek  and  operated 
extensively.  His  first  well  at  Pioneer  flowed  three-hundred  barrels  a  day. 
Fifty  others  at  Shamburg,  on  the  Benninghoff  farm  and  Cherrytree  Run  brought 
him  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars.  He  was  rated  at  three-millions  in  1870. 
Keeping  up  with  the  tidal  wave  southward,  he  put  down  two-hundred  wells  in 
the  Franklin,  Clarion  and  Butler  districts.  Failures  of  banks  and  manufac- 
tories in  which  he  had  a  large  stake  shattered  his  fortune.  With  the  loss  of 
money  he  did  not  lose  his  manliness  and  self-reliance.  In  the  Bradford  region 
he  pressed  forward  vigorously.  Again  he  "  plucked  the  flower  of  success"  and 
was  fast  recuperating  when  thrown  from  his  horse  and  fatally  injured.  Upright, 
unassuming  and  refined,  Mr.  Andrews  merited  the  confidence  and  esteem  of 


HYDE   &    EGBERT 


his  fellows.  A  farmer  in  Butler  county,  who  granted  him  a  lease  which  num- 
bers had  been  refused,  estimated  him  in  homely  phrase  :  "  Frank  Andrews  iz 
th'  nices'  kind  uv  man  an'  hes  a  winnin'  way  'ud  jes'  coax  a  settin'  hen  offen 
her  nest !" 

The  bluff  overlooking  Petroleum  Centre  from  the  east  formed  the  western 
side  of  the  McCray  farm.  At  its  base,  on  the  Hyde  &  Egbert  plot,  were  sev- 
eral of  the  finest  wells  in  Pennsylvania,  the  Coquette  almost  touching  McCray's 


i32  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

line.  Dr.  M.  C.  Egbert  leased  part  of  the  slope  and  drilled  three  wells.  Other 
parties  drilled  five  and  the  eight  behaved  so  handsomely  that  the  owner  of  the 
land  declined  an  offer,  in  1865,  of  a  half-million  dollars  for  his  eighty  acres.  A 
well  on  top  of  the  hill,  not  deep  enough  to  hit  the  sand  and  supposed  to  be  dry, 
postponed  further  operations  five  years.  His  friends  distanced  Jeremiah  in 
their  lamentations  that  McCray  had  spurned  the  five-hundred-thousand  dollars. 
He  may  have  thought  of  Shakespeare's  "tide  in  the  affairs  of  men,"  but  he 
sawed  wood  and  said  nothing.  Jonathan  Watson,  advised  by  a  clairvoyant,  in 
the  spring  of  1870  drilled  a  three-hundred-barrel  well  on  the  uplands  of  the 
Dalzell  farm,  close  to  the  southern  boundary  of  the  McCray.  The  clairvoyant's 
astonishing  guess  revived  interest  in  Petroleum  Centre,  which  for  a  year  or  two 
had  been  on  the  down  grade.  Besieged  for  leases,  McCray  could  not  meet  a 
tithe  of  the  demand  at  one-thousand  dollars  an  acre  and  half  the  oil.  Derricks 
clustered  thickly.  Every  well  tapped  the  pool  underlying  fifteen  acres,  pump- 
ing as  if  drawing  from  a  lake  of  petroleum.  Within  four  months  the  daily 
production  was  three-thousand  barrels.  This  meant  nineteen-hundred  barrels 
for  the  land-owner— fifteen-hundred  from  royalty  and  four-hundred  from  wells 
he  had  drilled— a  regular  income  of  nine-thousand  dollars  a  day !  Cipher  it 
out — nineteen-hundred  barrels  at  four-fifty  to  five  dollars,  with  eleven-hundred 
barrels  for  the  lessees — and  what  do  you  find  ?  Fourteen-thousand  dollars  a 
day  for  the  last  quarter  of  1870  and  nine  months  of  1871,  from  one-sixth  of  a 
farm  sold  in  1850  for  seventeen-hundred  dollars  ! 

James  S.  McCray,  a  farmer's  son,  born  in  1824  on  the  flats  below  Titusville, 
at  twenty-two  set  out  for  himself  with  two  dollars  in  his  pocket.  Working 
three  years  in  a  saw-mill  on  the  Allegheny,  he  saved  his  earnings  and  in  1850 
was  able  to  buy  a  team  and  take  up  the  farm  decreed  to  enrich  him  beyond  his 
wildest  fancies.  He  married  Miss  Martha  G.  Crooks,  a  willing  helpmeet  in 
adversity  and  wise  counsellor  in  prosperity.  His  first  venture  in  oil,  a  share  in 
a  two-acre  lease  at  Rouseville,  he  sold  to  drill  a  well  on  the  Blood  farm,  elbow- 
ing his  own.  From  this  he  realized  seventy-thousand  dollars.  For  his  own 
farm  he  refused  a  million  dollars  in  1871.  Sharpers  dogged  his  footsteps  and 
endeavored  to  rope  him  into  all  sorts  of  preposterous  schemes.  He  told  me 
one  project,  which  was  expected  to  control  the  coal-trade  of  the  region,  bled 
him  two-hundred-and-sixty-thousand  dollars  !  Instead  of  selling  his  oil  right 
along,  at  an  average  figure  of  nearly  five  dollars,  he  stored  two-hundred-thou- 
sand barrels  in  iron-tanks,  to  await  higher  prices.  In  my  presence  H.I.  Beers, 
of  McClintockville,  bid  him  five-thirty-five  a  barrel  for  the  lot.  McCray  stuck 
out  for  five-fifty.  He  kept  the  oil  for  years,  losing  thousands  of  barrels  by 
leakage  and  evaporation,  and  sold  the  bulk  of  it  at  one  to  two  dollars.  Had 
he  dealt  with  Beers  he  would  have  been  six-hundred-thousand  dollars  richer ! 
Mr.  McCray  removed  to  Franklin  in  1872  and  died  some  years  ago.  He  rests 
in  the  cemetery  beside  his  faithful  wife  and  only  daughter.  The  wells  on  his 
farm  drooped  and  withered  and  the  famous  fifteen-acre  field  has  long  been  a 
pasture.  A  robust  character,  strong-willed  and  kindly,  sometimes  queerly 
contradictory  and  often  misjudged,  James  S.  McCray  could  adopt  the  words  of 
King  Lear  :  "I  am  a  man  more  sinned  against  than  sinning." 

The  Dalzell  or  Hayes  farm,  on  which  the  first  well — fifty  barrels — was 
drilled  in  1861,  boasted  the  Porcupine,  Rhinoceros,  Ramcat,  Wildcat,  and  a 
menagerie  of  thirty  others  ranging  from  ten  barrels  to  three-hundred.  At  the 
north  end  of  the  farm,  in  the  rear  of  the  Maple  Shade  and  Jersey  wells,  the 
Petroleum  Shaft  and  Mining  Company  attempted  to  sink  a  hole  seven  feet  by 


THE    VALLEY  OF  PETROLEUM.  133 

seventeen  to  the  third  sand.  The  shaft  was  dug  and  blasted  one-hundred  feet, 
at  immense  cost.  The  funds  ran  out,  gas  threatened  to  asphyxiate  the  work- 
men, the  big  pumps  could  not  exhaust  the  water  and  the  absurd  undertaking 
was  abandoned. 

The  story  of  the  Story  farm  does  not  lack  romantic  ingredients.  William 
Story  owned  five-hundred  acres  south  of  the  G.  W.  McClintock  farm,  Oil 
Creek,  the  Dalzell  and  Tarr  farms  bounding  his  land  on  the  east.  He  sold  in 
1859  to  Ritchie,  Hartje  &  Co.,  of  Pittsburg,  for  thirty-thousand  dollars. 
George  H.  Bissell  had  negotiated  for  the  property,  but  Mrs.  Story  objected  to 
signing  the  deed.  Next  day  Bissell  returned  to  offer  the  wife  a  sufficient  in- 
ducement, but  the  Pittsburg  agent  had  been  there  the  previous  evening  and 
secured  her  signature  to  the  Ritchie-Hartje  deed  by  the  promise  of  a  silk  dress ! 
Thus  a  twenty-dollar  gown  changed  the  ultimate  ownership  of  millions  of 
dollars !  The  long-haired  novelist,  who  soars  into  the  infinite  and  dives  into 
the  unfathomable,  may  try  to  imagine  what  the  addition  of  a  new  bonnet  would 
have  accomplished. 

The  seven  Pittsburgers  organized  a  stock  company  in  1860  to  develop  the 
farm.  By  act  of  Legislature  this  was  incorporated  on  May  first,  1861,  as  the 
Columbia  Oil-Company,  with  a  nominal  capital  of  two-hundred-and-fifty-thou- 
sand  dollars — ten-thousand  shares  of  twenty-five  dollars  each.  Twenty-one- 
thousand  barrels  of  oil  were  produced  in  1861  and  ninety-thousand  in  1862, 
shares  selling  at  two  to  ten  dollars.  Foreign  demand  for  oil  improved  matters. 
On  July  eighth,  1863,  the  first  dividend  of  thirty  per  cent,  was  declared,  fol- 
lowed in  August  and  September  by  two  of  twenty-five  per  cent,  and  in  October 
by  one  of  fifty  per  cent.  Four  dividends,  aggregating  one-hundred-and-sixty 
per  cent.,  were  declared  the  first  six  months  of  1864.  The  capital  was  increased 
to  two-and-a-half-millions,  by  calling  in  the  old  stock  and  giving  each  holder  of 
a  twenty-five-dollar  share  five  new  ones  of  fifty  dollars  apiece.  Four-hundred 
per  cent,  were  paid  on  this  capital  in  six  years.  The  original  stockholders 
received  their  money  back  forty-three  times  and  had  ten  times  their  first  stock 
to  keep  on  drawing  fat  dividends  !  Suppose  a  person  had  bought  one-hundred 
shares  in  1862  at  two  dollars,  in  eight  years  he  would  have  been  paid  one- 
hundred-and-seven-thousand  dollars  for  his  two  hundred  and  have  five-hundred 
fifty-dollar  shares  on  hand!  From  a  mere  speck  of 
the  Story  farm  the  Columbia  Oil-Company  in  ten 
years  produced  oil  that  sold  for  ten-millions  of  dol- 
lars !  Wonder  not  that  men,  dazzled  by  such  returns, 
blind  to  the  failures  that  littered  the  oily  domain, 
clutched  at  the  veriest  phantoms  in  the  mad  craze 
for  boundless  wealth. 

Andrew  Carnegie,  the  colossus  of  the  iron-trade, 
was  a  Columbia  stock-holder.  He  started  in  life  as  a 
messenger-boy.  William  Melville  and  David  Mc- 
Cargo  were  his  associates  in  the  telegraph  service  of 
the  Pennsylvania  Railroad.  One  day  Edgar  Thom- 
son, president  of  the  road  and  head  of  the  great  steel- 
works at  Braddock,  asked  Mr.  Pitcairn  to  send  him  a  smart  lad  to  help  in  his 
office.  As  the  story  goes,  Pitcairn  decided  that  he  could  best  spare  the  canny 
young  Scot.  Melville  was  exceptionally  quick,  McCargo  never  neglected  the 
smallest  details  of  his  work  and  Carnegie,  who  possessed  the  cautious  delibera- 
tion cf  his  race,  was  sent  to  Mr.  Thomson.  His  shrewdness  and  fidelity 


i34  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

speedily  won  Thomson's  favor.  The  railroad-king  died  and  his  clever  clerk 
eventually  controlled  the  steel-plant  ten  miles  east  of  Pittsburg.  Now  Andrew 
Carnegie  bosses  the  steel-industry,  owns  the  largest  steel-plants  in  the  world, 
manufactures  massive  armor-plate  for  war-ships — blow-holes  blew  holes  in  its 
reputation  "once  upon  a  time " — and  has  acquired  forty  or  fifty-millions  by  the 
sweat  of  his  workmen's  brows.  He  has  parks  and  castles  in  Scotland,  spends 
much  of  his  time  and  cash  abroad,  coaches  with  princes  and  nobles  and  lets 
H.  C.  Frick  fricasee  the  toilers  at  Braddock  and  Homestead.  The  Homestead 
riots,  precipitated  by  a  ruffianly  horde  of  Pinkerton  thugs,  aroused  a  storm  of 
indignation  which  defeated  Benjamin  Harrison  for  the  presidency  and  elected 
Grover  Cleveland  on  the  issue  of  tariff-reform.  Mr.  Carnegie  writes  soul- 
stirring  magazine-articles  on  the  duties  of  capital  to  labor  and  has  established 
numerous  public-libraries.  He  is  stoutly  built  and  exceedingly  healthy.  His 
enormous  fortune  may  yet  endow  some  magnificent  charity.  Melville  keeps 
books  in  a  pipe-line  office  at  Pittsburg  and  McCargo  is  superintendent  of  the 
Allegheny- Valley  Railway. 

Splendidly  managed  throughout,  the  policy  of  the  Columbia  Company  was 
to  operate  its  lands  systematically.  Wells  were  not  drilled  at  random  over  the 
farm,  nor  were  leases  granted  to  speculators.  There  was  no  effort  to  make  a 
big  showing  of  production  and  exhaust  the  territory  in  the  shortest  time  possi- 
ble. For  twenty-five  years  the  Story  farm  yielded  profitably.  The  wells,  never 
amazingly  large,  held  on  tenaciously.  The  Ladies'  well  produced  sixty-five- 
thousand  barrels,  the  Floral  sixty-thousand,  the  Big  Tank  fifty-thousand,  the 
Story  Centre  forty-five-thousand,  the  Breedtown  forty-thousand,  the  Cherry  Run 
fifty-five-thousand,  the  Titus  pair  one-hundred-thousand  and  the  Perry  thirty- 
five-thousand.  The  company  erected  machine-shops,  built  houses  for  employes, 
and  the  village  of  Columbia  prospered.  The  Columbia  Cornet  Band,  superbly 
appointed,  its  thirty  members  in  rich  uniforms,  its  instruments  the  finest  and  its 
drum-major  an  acrobatic  revelation,  could  have  given  Gilmore's  or  Sousa's 
points  in  ravishing  music.  G.  S.  Bancroft  superintended  the  wells  and  D.  H. 
Boulton,  now  of  Franklin,  assisted  President  D.  B.  Stewart,  of  Pittsburg,  in 
conducting  affairs  generally.  The  village  has  vanished,  the  cornet  band  is 
hushed  forever,  the  fields  are  the  prey  of  weeds  and  underbrush  and  brakemen 
no  more  call  out  "Columby!"  A  few  small  wells,  hidden  amid  the  hills, 
produce  a  morsel  of  oil,  but  the  farm,  despoiled  of  sixteen-million  dollars  of 
greasy  treasure,  would  not  bring  one-fourth  the  price  paid  William  Story  for  it 
in  the  fall  of  1859.  "  So  passes  away  earthly  glory  "  is  as  true  to-day  as  when 
Horace  evolved  the  classic  phrase  two-thousand  years  ago. 

On  the  east  side  of  Oil  Creek,  opposite  the  southern  half  of  the  Story  farm, 
James  Tarr  owned  and  occupied  a  triangular  tract  of  two-hundred  acres.  He 
was  a  strong-limbed,  loud-voiced,  stout-hearted  son  of  toil,  farming  in  summer 
and  hauling  lumber  in  winter  to  support  his  family.  Although  uneducated,  he 
had  plenty  of  "horse  sense "  and  native  wit.  His  quaint  speech  coined  words 
and  terms  that  are  entrenched  firmly  in  the  nomenclature  of  Oildom.  Funny 
stories  have  been  told  at  his  expense.  One  of  these,  relating  to  his  daughter, 
whom  he  had  taken  to  a  seminary,  has  appeared  in  hundreds  of  newspapers. 
According  to  the  revised  version,  the  principal  of  the  school  expressing  a  fear 
that  the  girl  had  not  "capacity,"  the  fond  father,  profoundly  ignorant  of  what 
was  meant,  drew  a  roll  of  greenbacks  from  his  pocket  and  exclaimed:  "Damn 
it,  that's  nothing  !  Buy  her  one  and  here's  the  stuff  to  pay  for  it !"  The  fact 
that  it  is  pure  fiction  may  detract  somewhat  from  the  piquancy  of  this  incident. 


THE    VALLEY  OF  PETROLEUM. 


135 


Tarr  realized  his  own  deficiencies  from  lack  of  schooling  and  spared  no  pains, 
when  the  golden  stream  flowed  his  way,  to  educate  the  children  dwelling  in  the 
old  home  on  the  south  end  of  the  farm.  His  daughters  were  bright,  good- 
looking,  intelligent  girls.  Scratching  the  barren  hills  for  a  meager  corn-crop, 
hunting  rabbits  on  Sundays,  rafting  in  the  spring  and  fall  and  teaming  while 
snow  lasted  barely  sufficed  to  keep  the  gaunt  wolf  of  hunger  from  the  door  of 
many  a  hardy  Oil-Creek  settler.  To  their  credit  be  it  said,  most  of  the  land- 


owners whom  petroleum  enriched  took  care  of  their  money.  Rough  diamonds, 
uncut  and  unpolished,  they  possessed  intrinsic  worth.  James  Tarr  was  of  the 
number  who  did  not  lose  their  heads  and  squander  their  substance.  The  richest 
of  them  all,  he  bought  a  delightful  home  near  Meadville,  provided  every  com- 
fort and  convenience,  spent  his  closing  years  enjoyablyand  died  in  1871.  "  Put 
yourself  in  his  place  "  and,  candidly,  would  you  have  done  better? 

For  himself,  George  B.  Delamater  and  L.  L.  Lamb,  in  the  summer  of  1860 
Orange  Noble  leased  seven  acres  of  the  Tarr  farm,  at  the  bend  in  Oil  Creek. 
Dry  holes  the  partners  "  kicked  down  "  on  the  Stackpole  and  Jones  farms  damp- 
ening their  ardor,  they  let  the  Tarr  lease  lie  dormant  some  months.  Contracting 
with  a  Townville  neighbor — N.  S.  Woodford — to  juggle  the  "spring-pole,"  he 
cracked  the  first  sand  in  June,  1861.  The  Crescent  well — so  called  because  the 
faith  of  the  owners  was  increasing — tipped  the  beam  at  five-hundred  barrels. 
The  first  well  on  the  Tarr  farm,  it  flowed  an  average  of  three-hundred  barrels  a 
day  for  thirteen  months,  quitting  without  notice.  Cleaning  it  out,  drilling  it 
deeper  and  pumping  it  for  weeks  were  of  no  avail.  Not  a  drop  of  oil  could  be 
extracted  and  the  Crescent  was  abandoned.  Crude  was  so  low  during  most  of 
its  existence — ten  to  twenty-five  cents— that  the  well,  although  it  produced  one- 
hundred-and-twenty-thousand  barrels,  did  not  pay  the  owners  a  dollar  of  profit ! 


136  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE- OIL. 

Drilling,  royalty  and  tankage  absorbed  every  nickel.  Like  the  victories  of 
Pyrrhus,  the  more  such  strikes  a  fellow  achieved  the  sooner  he  would  be  undone ! 

On  the  evening  of  August  first,  1861,  as  James  Tarr  sat  eating  his  supper  of 
fried  pork  and  johnny-cake,  Heman  Janes,  of  Erie,  entered  the  room.  "Tarr," 
he  said,  "  I'll  give  you  sixty-thousand  dollars  in  spot  cash  for  your  farm  !"  Tarr 
almost  fell  off  his  chair.  A  year  before  one-thousand  dollars  would  have  been 
big  money  for  the  whole  plantation.  "I  mean  it,"  continued  the  visitor;  "if 
you  take  me  up  I'll  close  the  deal  right  here  !"  Tarr  "took  him  up"  and  the 
deal,  which  included  a  transfer  of  several  leases,  was  closed  quickly.  Janes 
planked  down  the  sixty-thousand  and  Tarr,  within  an  hour,  had  stepped  from 
poverty  to  affluence.  This  was  the  first  large  cash  transaction  in  oil-lands  on  the 
creek  and  people  promptly  pronounced  Janes  a  fool  of  the  thirty-third  degree. 
An  Irishman,  on  trial  for  stealing  a  sheep,  asked  by  the  judge  whether  he  was 
guilty  or  not  guilty,  replied  :  ' '  How  can  I  tell  till  I  hear  the  ividence  ?"  Don't 
endorse  the  Janes  verdict  "till  you  hear  the  ividence." 

A  short  distance  below  the  Crescent  well  William  Phillips,  who  had  leased 
a  narrow  strip  the  entire  length  of  the  farm,  was  also  urging  a  "spring-pole" 
actively.  Born  in  Westmoreland  county  in  1824,  he  passed  his  boyhood  on  a 
farm  and  earned  his  first  money  mining  coal.  Saving  his  hard-won  wages,  he 
bought  the  keel-boat  Orphan  Boy  and  started  freighting  on  the  Ohio  and  Alle- 
gheny rivers.  The  business  proving  remunerative,  he  drilled  salt-wells  at  Bull 
Creek  and  Wildcat  Hollow.  On  his  last  trip  from  Warren  to  Pittsburg,  in  Sep- 
te'mber  of  1859,  he  noticed  a  scum  of  oil  in  front  of  Thomas  Downing's  farm, 
where  South  Oil  City  now  stands.  The  story  of  the  Drake  well  was  in  every- 
body's mouth  and  it  occurred  to  Phillips  that  he  could  increase  his  growing 
fortune  by  drilling  on  the  Downing  land.  At  Pittsburg  he  consulted  Charles 
Lockhart,  William  Frew,  Captain  Kipp  and  John  Vanausdall  and  with  them 
formed  the  partnership  of  Phillips,  Frew  &  Co.  Returning  at  once,  he  leased 
from  Downing,  erected  a  pole-derrick  and  proceeded  to  bore  a  well  on  the  water's 
edge,  \yith  no  machine-shops,  tools  or  appliances  nearer  than  Pittsburg,  a  hun- 
dred-and-thirty  miles  off,  difficulties  of  all  kinds  retarded  the  work  nine  months. 
Finally  the  job  was  completed  and  the  Albion  well,  pumping  forty  barrels  a  day, 
raised  a  commotion. 

The  Albion  brought  Phillips  to  the  front  as  an  oil-operator.  James  Tarr 
readily  leased  him  part  of  his  farm  and  he  began  Phillips  No.  i  well  in  the  spring 
of  1 86 1.  The  Crescent's  unexpected  success  spurred  him  to  greater  efforts. 
Hurrying  an  engine  and  boiler  from  Pittsburg,  he  started  his  second  well  on  the 
flat  hugging  the  stream  twenty  rods  north  of  the  Crescent.  Steam-power  rushed 
the  tools  at  a  boom-de-ay  gait.  The  first  sand,  from  which  meanwhile  No.  i 
was  rivaling  the  Crescent's  yield,  had  not  a  pinch  of  oil.  The  solid-silver  lining 
of  the  petroleum-cloud  assumed  a  plated  look,  but  Phillips  heeded  it  not.  An 
expert  driller,  he  hustled  the  tools  and  on  October  nineteenth,  at  four-hundred- 
and-eighty  feet,  pierced  the  shell  above  the  third  sand.  At  dusk  he  shut  down 
for  the  night.  The  weather  was  clear  and  the  moon  shone  brightly.  Suddenly 
a  vivid  flame  illumined  the  sky.  Reuben  Painter's  well  on  the  Blood  farm,  a 
mile  southward,  had  caught  fire  and  blazed  furiously.  The  rare  spectacle  of  a 
burning  well  attracted  everybody  for  miles.  Phillips  and  Janes  were  among 
those  who  hastened  to  the  fire,  returning  about  midnight.  An  hour  later  they 
were  summoned  from  bed  by  a  man  yelling  at  the  Ella-Yaw  pitch  :  "The  Phillips 
is  bu'sted  and  runnin'  down  the  creek  !"  People  ran  to  the  spot  on  the  double- 
quick,  past  the  Crescent  and  down  the  bank.  Gas  was  settling  densely  upon  the 


THE    VALLEY  OF  PETROLEUM. 


137 


flats  and  into  the  creek  oil  was  pouring  lavishly.  Dreading  a  fire,  lights  were 
extinguished  on  the  adjoining  tracts  and  needful  precautions  taken.  For  three 
or  four  days  the  flow  raged  unhindered,  then  a  lull  occurred  and  tubing  was  in- 
serted. After  the  seed-bag  swelled,  a  stop-cock  was  placed  on  the  tubing  and 
thenceforth  it  was  easy  to  regulate  the  flow.  When  oil  was  wanted  the  stop-cock 
was  opened  and  wooden  troughs  conveyed  the  stuff  to  boats  drawn  up  the  creek 
by  horses,  the  chief  mode  of  transportation  for  years.  The  oil  was  forty-four 
gravity  and  four-thousand  barrels  a  day  gushed  out !  In  June  of  1862,  when 


WOODFORD    WELL. 


TARR    FARM    IN    1862. 


PHILLIPS   WELI 


Phillips  and  Major  Frew,  with  their  wives  and  a  party  of  friends,  inspected  the 
well,  a  careful  gauge  showed  it  was  doing  thirty-six-hundred-and-sixty  barrels  ! 
The  Phillips  well  held  the  champion-belt  twenty-seven  years.  It  produced  until 
1871,  getting  down  to  ten  or  twelve  barrels  and  ceasing  altogether  the  night 
James  Tarr  expired,  having  yielded  nearly  one-million  barrels  !  Cargoes  of  the 
oil  were  sold  to  boatmen  at  five  cents  a  barrel,  thousands  of  barrels  were  wasted, 
tens  of  thousands  were  stored  in  underground  tanks  and  much  was  sold  at  three 
to  thirteen  dollars. 

N.  S.  Woodford,  Noble  &  Delamater's  contractor,  had  the  foresight  to  lease 
the  ground  between  the  Crescent  and  the  Phillips  No.  2.  His  three-thousand 
barreler,  finished  in  December,  1861,  drew  its  grist  from  the  Phillips  crevice  and 
interfered  with  the  mammoth  gusher.  When  the  two  became  pumpers  neither 
would  give  out  oil  unless  both  were  worked.  If  one  was  stopped  the  other 
pumped  water.  Ultimately  the  Phillips  crowd  paid  Woodford  a  half-million  for 
his  well  and  lease,  a  wad  for  which  a  man  would  ford  even  the  atrocious  Tarr- 
farm  mud  and  complacently  whistle  "Ta-ra-ra."  He  retired  to  his  Townville 
home,  with  six-hundred-thousand  dollars  to  show  for  eighteen  months'  operations 
on  Oil  Creek,  and  never  bothered  any  more  about  oil.  The  Woodford  well 
repaid  its  enormous  cost.  Lockhart  and  Frew  bought  out  their  partners  at  a 
high  price  and  put  the  Phillips-Woodford  interests  into  a  stock-company  capi- 
talized at  two-million  dollars.  The  Phillips  well — one  result  of  a  keen-eyed 


I38  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

boatman's  observing  an  oily  scum  on  the  Allegheny  River — enriched  all  con- 
cerned. Had  Phillips  failed  to  see  the  speck  of  grease  that  September  day, 
who  can  tell  how  different  oil-region  history  might  have  been  ?  Happily  for  a 
good  many  persons,  the  Orphan  Boy  was  not  one  of  the  "Ships  that  Pass  in  the 
Night. ' '  What  a  field  Oil  Creek  presents  for  the  fervid  fancy  of  a  Dumas,  a 
Dickens,  a  Wilkie  Collins  or  a  Charles  Reade  ! 

Comrades  in  business  and  good-fellowship,  William  Phillips  and  John  Van- 
ausdall  removed  to  South  Oil  City,  lived  neighbors  and  died  twenty  years  ago. 
They  resembled  each  other  in  appearance  and  temper,  in  charitable  impulse  and 
kindness  to  the  poor.  Phillips  drilled  dozens  of  wells — none  of  them  dry — aided 
Oil-City  enterprises  and  was  a  member  of  the  shipping  firm  of  Munhall  &  Co. 
until  its  dissolution  in  1876.  He  was  the  first  man  to  ship  oil  by  steamer,  the 
Venango  taking  the  first  load  to  Pittsburg,  and  the  first  to  run  crude  in  bulk 
down  the  creek.  One  son,  John  C.  Phillips,  and  a  married  daughter  live  at  Oil 
City  and  two  sons  at  Freeport. 

Heman  Janes,  of  Erie,  the  first  purchaser  of  the  Tarr  farm,  from  1850  to  1861 
shipped  large  quantities  of  lumber  to  the  eastern  market.  Passing  through 
Canada  in  1858,  he  heard  oil  was  obtained  from  gum-beds  in  Lambton  county, 
south  of  Lake  Huron,  and  visited  the  place.  John  Williams  was  dipping  five 
barrels  a  day  from  a  hole  ten  feet  square  and  twenty  feet  deep.  The  best  gum- 
beds  spread  over  two-hundred  acres  of  timbered  land,  which  Mr.  Janes  bought 
at  nine  dollars  an  acre,  the  owner  selling  because  "the  stinking  oil  smelled  five 
miles  off."  Leasing  four-hundred  acres  more,  in  1860  he  sold  a  half-interest  in 
both  tracts  for  fifteen-thousand  dollars  and  retired  from  lumbering  to  devote  his 
attention  to  oil.  Large  wells  on  his  Canadian  lands  enabled  him  to  sell  the  second 
half  of  the  property  in  1865  for  fifty-five-thousand  dollars.  In  February,  1861, 
he  secured  a  thirty-day  option  on  the  J.  Bu- 
chanan farm,  the  site  of  Rouseville,  and  ten- 
dered the  price  at  the  stipulated  time,  but  the 
transaction  fell  through.  In  March  of  that 
year  he  went  to  West  Virginia  and  leased  one- 
thousand  acres  on  the  Kanawha  River,  includ- 
ing the  famous  "Burning  Spring."  U.  E. 
Everett  &  Co.  agreed  to  pay  fifty-thousand 
dollars  for  one-half  interest  in  the  property, 
at  Parkersburg,  on  April  twelfth.  All  parties 
met,  a  certified  check  was  laid  on  the  table 
and  Attorney  J.  B.  Blair  started  to  draw  the 
papers.  At  that  moment  a  boy  ran  past, 
shouting :  ' '  Fort  Sumpter's  fired  on  ! "  The 
gentlemen  hurried  out  to  learn  the  particulars. 

HEMAN  JANES.  ' '  Tne  cat  came  back, "  but  Everett  didn't.    A 

message  told  him  to  "hold  off,  "  and  he  is 

holding  off  still.  Janes  stayed  as  long  as  a  Northerner  dared  and  was  thankful 
to  sell  the  batch  of  leases  for  seventy-five-hundred  dollars.  In  1862  he  sued  the 
owners  of  the  Phillips  well  for  his  royalty  in  barrels.  They  refused  to  furnish 
the  barrels,  which  were  scarce  and  expensive,  and  the  well  was  shut  down  for 
months  pending  the  litigation.  The  suit  was  for  one-hundred-and-twelve- thou- 
sand dollars,  up  to  that  time  the  largest  amount  ever  involved  in  a  case  before 
the  Venango  court.  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  soon  to  be  known  as  the  illustrious 
War-Secretary,  was  one  of  the  attorneys  engaged  by  the  plaintiff,  for  a  fee  of 


THE    VALLEY  OF  PETROLEUM.  139 

twenty-fi  ve-thousand  dollars .  A  compromise  was  arranged  for  half  the  oil.  The 
first  oil  sold  after  this  agreement  was  at  three  dollars  a  barrel,  taken  from  the  first 
twelve-hundred-barrel  tank  ever  seen  in  the  region.  A  wooden  tank  of  that  size 
excited  more  curiosity  in  those  days  than  a  hundred  iron  ones  of  forty-thousand 
barrels  in  this  year  of  grace.  Janes  sold  back  half  the  farm  to  Tarr  for  forty- 
thousand  dollars  and  two-thirds  of  the  remaining  half  to  Clark  &  Sumner  for 
twenty-thousand,  leaving  him  one-sixth  clear  of  cost,  the  same  month  he  bought 
the  tract.  He  first  suggested  casing  wells  to  exclude  the  water,  built  the  first 
bulk-boat  decked  over— six-hundred  barrels— to  transport  oil  and  was  identified 
with  the  first  practicable  pipe-line.  Paying  seventy-five-thousand  dollars  for  the 
Blackmar  farm,  at  Pithole,  he  drilled  three  dry  holes  and  then  got  rid  of  the  land 
at  a  snug  advance.  Since  1878  Mr.  Janes  has  been  interested  in  the  Bradford 
field  and  living  at  Erie.  A  man  of  forceful  character  and  executive  ability, 
hearty,  vigorous  and  companionable,  he  deserves  the  large  measure  of  success 
that  rewarded  him  as  an  important  factor  in  petroleum-affairs.  In  the  words  of 
the  good  Scottish  mother  to  her  son:  "May  your  lot  be  wi'  the  rich  in  this 
warld  and  wi'  the  puir  in  the  warld  to  come." 

The  amazing  output  of  the  Phillips  and  Woodford  wells  stimulated  the  de- 
mand for  territory  to  the  boiling  point.  Men  were  infinitely  less  eager  to  ' '  read 
their  title  clear  to  mansions  in  the  skies  "  than  to  secure  a  title  to  a  fragment  of 
the  Tarr  farm.  Rigs  huddled  on  the  bank  and  in  the  water,  for  nobody  thought 
oil  existed  back  in  the  hilly  sections.  Sixty  yards  below  the  Phillips  spouter 
J.  F.  Crane  sank  a  well  that  responded  as  pleasantly  as  "  the  swinging  of  the 
crane."  Dinsmore  Brothers,  at  the  lower  end  of  the  farm,  drilled  a  seven-hun- 
dred-barreler  late  in  1861.  A  zoological  freak  introduced  the  animal  fad,  which 
named  the  Elephant,  Young  Elephant,  Tigress,  Tiger,  Lioness,  Scared  Cat, 
Anaconda  and  Weasel  wells.  Reckless  speculation  held  the  fort  unchecked. 
The  third  sand  was  sixty  feet  thick,  the  territory  was  durable  and  three-hundred 
walking-beams  exhibited  "the  poetry  of  motion  "  to  the  music  of  three-four- 
five-six-eight-ten-dollar  oil.  Mr.  Janes  built  a  commodious  hotel  and  a  town  of 
two-thousand  population  flourished.  James  Tarr  sold  his  entire  interest  in  1865, 
for  gold  equivalent  to  two-millions  in  currency,  and  removed  to  Crawford  county. 
Another  million  would  hardly  cover  his  royalties.  Three-million  dollars  ahead 
of  the  game  in  four  years,  he  could  afford  to  smile  at  the  jibes  of  small-souled 
retailers  of  witless  ridicule.  If  "  money  talks, ' '  three-millions  ought  to  be  pretty 
eloquent.  The  churches,  stores,  houses,  offices,  wells  and  tanks  have  "gone 
glimmering."  Tarr  Farm  station  appears  no  more  on  railroad  time-tables. 
Modern  maps  do  not  reveal  it.  Few  know  and  fewer  care  who  owns  the  place 
once  the  apple  of  the  oilman's  eye,  now  a  shadowy  relic  not  worth  carting  off 
in  a  wheelbarrow  ! 

Producers  have  enjoyed  quite  a  reputation  for  "resolving,"  and  the  first 
meeting  ever  held  to  regulate  the  price  of  crude  was  at  Tarr  farm  in  1861.  The 
moving  spirits  were  Mr.  Janes,  General  James  Wadsworth  and  Josiah  Oakes, 
the  latter  a  New-York  capitalist.  The  idea  was  to  raise  five-hundred-thousand 
dollars  and  buy  up  the  territory  for  ten  miles  along  Oil  Creek.  Wadsworth  and 
Oakes  raised  over  three-hundred-thousand  dollars  for  this  purpose,  when  the 
panic  arising  from  the  war  ended  the  scheme.  A  contract  was  also  made  with 
Erie  parties  to  lay  a  four-inch  wooden  pipe-line  from  Tarr  farm  to  Oil  City.  On 
the  advice  of  Col.  Clark,  of  Clark  &  Sumner,  and  Sir  John  Hope,  the  eminent 
London  banker,  it  was  decided  to  abandon  the  project  and  apply  for  a  charter 
for  a  pipe-line.  This  was  done  in  the  winter  of  1861-2,  Hon.  Morrow  B.  Lowry, 


140  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE- OIL. 

who  represented  the  district  in  the  State  Senate,  favoring  the  application.  Hon. 
M.  C.  Beebe,  the  local  member  of  the  Legislature,  opposed  it  resolutely,  because, 
to  quote  his  own  words  :  "There  are  four-thousand  teams  hauling  oil  and  my 
constituents  won't  stand  this  interference."  The  measure  failing  to  carry,  Clark 
&  Hope  built  the  Standard  refinery-  at  Pittsburg. 

Resistance  to  the  South  Improvement  Company  welded  the  producers  sol- 
idly in  1872.  The  refiners  organized  to  force  a  larger  margin  between  crude  and 
refined.  To  offset  this  and  govern  the  production  and  sale  of  crude,  the  pro- 
ducers established  a  ' '  union, "  "  agencies ' '  and  ' '  councils. "  In  October  of  1 872 
every  well  in  the  region  was  shut  down  for  thirty  days.  The  "  spirit  of  seventy- 
six  "  was  abroad  and  individual  losses  were  borne  cheerfully  for  the  general 
good.  This  was  the  heroic  period,  which  demonstrated  the  manly  fiber  of  the 
great  body  of  oil-operators.  E.  E.  Clapp,  of  President,  and  Captain  William 
Harson,  of  Oil  City,  were  the  chief  officers  of  these  remarkable  organizations. 
Suspensions  of  drilling  in  1873-4-5  supplemented  the  memorable  "thirty-day 
shut-down."  At  length  the  "union,"  the  "councils"  and  the  "agencies" 
wilted  and  dissolved.  The  area  of  productive  territory  widened  and  strong 
companies  became  a  necessity  to  develop  it.  The  big  fish  swallowed  the  little 
ones,  hence  tiie.  personal  feature  so  pronounced  in  earlier  years  has  been  almost 
eliminated.  Many  of  the  operators  are  members  of  the  Producers'  Association, 
in  which  Congressman  Phillips,  Lewis  Emery,  David  Kirk  and  T.  J.  Vander- 
grift  are  prime  factors.  Its  president,  Hon.  J.  W.  Lee,  practiced  law  at  Frank- 
lin, served  twice  as  State  Senator  and  located  at  Pittsburg-  last  year.  He  is  a 
cogent  speaker,  not  averse  to  legal  tilts  and  not  backward  flying  his  colors  in 
the  face  of  the  enemy. 

South  of  the  Story  and  Tarr  farms,  on  both  sides  of  Oil  Creek,  were  John 
Blood's  four-hundred-and-forty  acres.  The  owner  lived  in  an  unpainted, 
weatherbeaten  frame  house.  On  five  acres  of  the  flats  the  Ocean  Petroleum- 
Company  had  twelve  flowing  wells  in  1861.  The  Maple-Tree  Company's  burn- 
ing well  spouted  twenty-five-hundred  barrels  for  several  months,  declined  to 
three-hundred  in  a  year  and  was  destroyed  by  fire  in  October  of  1862.  The 
flames  devastated  twenty  acres,  consuming  ten  wells  and  a  hundred  tanks  of 
oil,  the  loss  aggregating  a  million  dollars.  A  sheet  of  fire,  terribly  grand  and 
up  to  that  date  the  most  extensive  and  destructive  in  Oildom,  wrapped  the  flats 
and  the  stream.  Blood  Well  No.  i,  flowing  a  thousand  barrels,  Blood  No.  2, 
flowing  six  hundred,  and  five  other  gushers  never  yielded  after  the  conflagration, 
prior  to  which  the  farm  was  producing  more  oil  than  the  balance  of  the  region. 
Brewer  &  Watson,  Ballard  &  Trax,  Edward  Filkins,  Henry  Collins,  Reuben 
Painter,  James  Burrows  and  J.  H.  Duncan  were  pioneer  operators  on  the  tract. 
Blood  sold  in  1863  for  five-hundred-and-sixty-thousand  dollars  and  removed  to 
New  York.  Buying  a  brownstone  residence  on  Fifth  avenue,  he  splurged 
around  Gotham  two  or  three  years,  quit  the  city  for  the  country  and  died  long 
since.  The  Blood  farm  was  notably  prolific,  but  its  glory  has  departed. 
Stripped  bare  of  derricks,  houses,  wells  and  tanks,  naught  is  left  save  the  rugged 
hills  and  sandy  banks.  "It  is  no  matter,  the  cat  will  mew,  the  dog  will  have 
his  day." 

Neighbors  of  John  Blood,  a  raw-boned  native  and  his  wife,  enjoyed  an  expe- 
rience not  yet  forgotten  in  New  York.  Selling  their  farm  for  big  money,  the 
couple  concluded  to  see  Manhattanville  and  set  off  in  high  glee,  arrayed  in 
homespun  clothes  of  most  agonizing  country-fashion.  Wags  on  the  farm  ad- 
vised them  to  go  to  the  Astor  House  and  insist  upon  having  the  finest  room  in 


THE    VALLEY  OF  PETROLEUM.  141 

the  caravansary.  Arriving  in  New  York,  they  were  driven  to  the  hotel,  each 
carrying  a  bundle  done  up  in  a  colored  handkerchief.  Their  rustic  appearance 
attracted  great  attention,  which  was  increased  when  the  man  marched  to  the 
office-counter  and  demanded  ' '  the  best  in  the  shebang,  b'gosh. ' '  The  astounded 
clerk  tried  to  get  the  unwelcome  guest  to  go  elsewhere,  assuring  him  he  must 
have  made  a  mistake.  The  rural  delegate  did  not  propose  to  be  bluffed  by 
coaxing  or  threats.  At  length  the  representative  of  petroleum  wanted  to  know 
"how  much  it  would  cost  to  buy  the  gol-darned  ranche."  In  despair  the  clerk 
summoned  the  proprietor,  who  soon  took  in  the  situation.  To  humor  the 
stranger  he  replied  that  one-hundred-thousand  dollars  would  buy  the  place. 
The  chap  produced  a  pile  of  bills  and  tendered  him  the  money  on  the  spot ! 
Explanations  followed,  a  parlor  and  bedroom  were  assigned  the  pair  and  for 
days  they  were  the  lions  of  the  metropolis.  Hundreds  of  citizens  and  ladies 
called  to  see  the  innocents  who  had  come  on  their  "first  tower"  as  green  and 
unsophisticated  as  did  Josiah  Allen's  Wife  twenty  years  later. 

Ambrose  Rynd,  an  Irish  woolen-factor,  bought  five-hundred  acres  from  the 
Holland  Land-Company  in  1800  and  built  a  log-cabin  at  the  mouth  of  Cherrytree 
Run.  He  attained  the  Nestorian  age  of  ninety-nine.  His  grandson,  John 
Rynd,  born  in  the  log-cabin  in  1815,  owned  three-hundred  acres  of  the  tract  when 
the  petroleum-wave  swept  Oil  Creek.  The  Blood  farm  was  north  and  the  Smith 
east.  Cherrytree  and  Wykle  Runs  rippled  through  the  western  half  of  the  prop- 
erty, which  Oil  Creek  divided  nicely.  Developments  in  1861  were  on  the  eastern 
half.  Starting  at  five-hundred  barrels,  the  Rynd  well  flowed  until  1863.  The 
Crawford  "saw"  the  Rynd  and  "went  it  one  better,"  lasting  until  June  of  1864. 
Six  fair  wells  were  drilled  on  Rynd  Island,  a  dot  at  the  upper  part  of  the  farm. 
The  Rynd-Farm  Oil-Company  of  New  York  purchased  the  tract  in  1864.  John 
Rynd  moved  to  Fayette  county  and  died  in  the  seventies.  Hume  &  Crawford, 
Porter  &  Milroy.  B.  F.  Wren,  the  Ozark,  Favorite,  Frost,  Northern  and  a  score  of 
companies  operated  vigorously.  The  third  sand  thickened  and  improved  with 
the  elevation  of  the  hills.  Five  refineries  handled  a  thousand  barrels  of  crude 
per  week.  A  snug  village  bloomed  on  the  west  side,  the  broad  flat  affording  an 
eligible  site.  The  late  John  Wallace  and  Theodore  Ladd  were  prominent  in  the 
later  stage  of  operations.  Cyrus  D.  Rynd  returned  m  1881  to  take  charge 
of  the  farm  and  served  as  postmaster  six  years.  Companies  bored  three- 
hundred  wells  on  Cherrytree  Run  and  its  tiny  branches.  Their  success  was  not 
startling.  Kane  City,  two  miles  north,  raised  Cain  in  mild  style,  the  territory 
"wearing  like  leather."  Farther  back  D.  W.  Kenney's  wells,  lively  as  the 
Kilkenny  cats,  stirred  a  current  that  wafted  in  Alemagooselum  City.  Its 
unique  name,  the  biggest  feature  of  the  ' '  City,  ' '  was  worked  out  by  Kenney,  a 
fun-loving  genius,  known  far  and  wide  as  ' '  Mayor  of  Alemagooselum. "  He  and 
his  wells  and  town  have  long  been  "  out  of  sight."  Kane  City  casts  an  attenu- 
ated shadow.  Rynd,  once  plump  and  juicy,  now  lean  and  dessicated,  resem- 
bles an  orange  which  a  boy  has  sucked  and  thrown  away  the  rind. 

Rev.  William  Elliott,  who  united  in  one  package  the  fervor  of  Paul  and  the 
snap  of  Ebenezer  Elliott,  "  the  Corn-Law  Rhymer,"  lived  and  preached  at  Rynd. 
He  organized  a  Sunday-school  in  Kenney's  parish,  which  a  devout  settler  under- 
took to  superintend.  At  the  close  of  the  regular  exercises  on  the  opening  day, 
Mr.  Elliott  asked  the  pious  ruralist  to  "say  a  few  words."  The  good  man, 
wishing  to  clinch  the  lesson— about  Mary  Magdalene — in  the  minds  of  the 
youngsters,  implored  them  to  follow  the  example  of  "Miss  Magdolin."  The 
older  brood  tittered  at  this  Hibernianism,  the  laugh  swelled  into  a  cloudburst. 


142 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


FISHING    OUT    THE   PREACHER'S    HORSE. 


Mr.  Elliott  nearly  swallowed  his  pocket-handkerchief  trying  to  shut  in  his  smiles 
and  a  new  query  was  born,  which  had  a  long  run.  It  was  fired  at  every  visitor 
to  the  settlement.  Small  boys  hurled  it  at  the  defenceless  superintendent,  who 
resigned  his  job  and  broke  up  the  school  next  Sunday.  Possibly  Br'er  Elliott, 
when  ushered  into  heaven,  would  not  be  one  bit  surprised  to  hear  some  white- 
winged  cherub  from  Alemagooselum 
sing  out,  "Say,  do  you  know  Miss  Mag 
Dolin?" 

The  scanty  herbage  on  the  tail  of  the 
parson's  horse  gave  rise  to  endless  sur- 
mises. The  animal  stranded  in  a  mud- 
hole  and  keeled  over  on  his  side.  Four 
sturdy  fellows  tried  to  fish  him  out.  In 
his  misguided  zeal  one  of  the  rescuers, 
tugging  at  the  caudal  appendage,  pulled 
so  hard  'that  half  the  hair  peeled  off, 
leaving  the  denuded  nag  a  fitting  mate 
for  Tam  O'Shanter's  tailless  Meg. 

Two  museum-curio  wells  on  the 
Rynd  farm  illustrated  practically  Chap- 
lain McCabe's  "Drinking  From  the 
Same  Canteen."  A  dozen  strokes  of 
the  pump  every  hour  caused  the  Agita- 
tor to  flow  ten  or  fifteen  minutes.  The 
Sunday  well,  its  companion,  loafed  six  days  in  the  week  while  the  other  worked, 
flowing  on  the  Sabbath  when  the  Agitator  pump  rested  from  its  labors.  This 
sort  of  affinity,  which  cost  William  Phillips  and  Noble  &  Delamater  a  mint  of 
money,  was  evinced  most  forcibly  on  the  McClintock  farm,  west  side  of  Oil 
Creek,  south  of  Rynd.  William  McClintock,  original  owner  of  the  two-hundred 
acres,  dying  in  1859,  the  widow  remained  on  the  farm  with  her  grandson,  John 
W.  Steele,  whom  the  couple  had  adopted  at  a  tender  age,  upon  the  decease  of 
his  mother.  Nearly  half  the  farm  was  bottom-land,  fronting  the  creek,  on  the 
bank  of  which  the  first  wells  were  sunk  in  1861.  The  Vanslyke  flowed  twelve- 
hundred  barrels  a  day,  declined  slowly  and  in  its  third  year  pumped  fourteen- 
thousand.  The  Lloyd,  Eastman,  Little  Giant,  Morrison,  Hayes  &  Merrick, 
Christy,  Ocean,  Painter,  Sterrett,  Chase  and  sixty  more  each  put  up  fifty  to  four- 
hundred  barrels  daily.  Directly  between  the  Vanslyke  and  Christy,  a  few  rods 
from  either,  New-York  parties  finished  the  Hammond  well  in  May,  1864.  Start- 
ing to  flow  three-hundred  barrels  a  day,  the  Hammond  killed  the  Lloyd  and 
Christy  and  reduced  the  Vanslyke  to  a  ten-barrel  pumper.  Its  triumph  was 
short-lived.  Early  in  June  the  New  Yorkers,  elated  over  its  performance, 
bought  the  royalty  of  the  well  and  one-third  acre  of  ground  for  two-hundred 
thousand  dollars.  The  end  of  June  the  tubing  was  drawn  from  the  Excelsior 
well,  on  the  John  McClintock  farm,  five-hundred  yards  east,  flooding  the  Ham- 
mond and  all  the  wells  in  the  vicinity.  The  damage  was  attributed  to  Vander- 
grift  &  Titus's  new  well  a  short  distance  down  the  flat,  nobody  imagining  it  came 
from  a  hole  a  quarter-mile  off.  Retubing  the  Excelsior  quickly  restored  one- 
half  the  Hammond's  yield,  which  increased  as  the  Excelsior's  lessened.  An 
adjustment  followed,  but  the  final  pulling  of  the  tubing  from  the  Excelsior 
drowned  the  affected  wells  permanently.  Geologists  and  scientists  reveled  in 
the  ethics  suggested  by  such  interference,  which  casing  wells  has  obviated.  The 


THE    VALLEY  OF  PETROLEUM.  143 

Widow-McClintock  farm  produced  hundreds  of  thousands  of  barrels  of  oil  and 
changed  hands  repeatedly.  For  years  it  was  owned  by  a  man  who  as  a  boy 
blacked  Steele's  boots.  In  1892  John  Waites  renovated  a  number  of  the  old 
wells.  Pumping  some  and  plugging  others,  to  shut  out  water,  surprised  and 
rewarded  him  with  a  yield  that  is  bringing  him  a  tidy  fortune.  The  action  of  the 
stream  has  washed  away  the  ground  on  which  the  Vanslyke,  the  Sterrett  and 
several  of  the  largest  wells  were  located.  "  Out,  out,  brief  candle  !" 

Mrs.  McClintock,  like  thousands  of  women  since,  attempted  one  day  in 
March  of  1863  to  hurry  up  the  kitchen-fire  with  kerosene.  The  result  was  her 
fatal  burning,  death  in  an  hour  and  the  first  funeral  to  the  account  of  the  treach- 
erous oil-can.  The  poor  woman  wore  coarse  clothing,  worked  hard  and  se- 
creted her  wealth  about  the  house.  Her  will,  written  soon  after  McClintock's 
exit,  bequeathed  everything  to  the  adopted  heir,  John  W.  Steele,  twenty  years 
old  when  his  grandmother  met  her  tragic  fate.  At  eighteen  he  had  married 
Miss  M.  Moffett,  daughter  of  a  farmer  in  Sugarcreek  township.  He  hauled  oil 
in  1861  with  hired  plugs  until  he  could  buy  a  span  of  stout  horses.  Oil-Creek 
teamsters,  proficient  in  lurid  profanity,  coveted  his  varied  stock  of  pointed  exple- 
tives. The  blonde  driver,  of  average  height  and  slender  build,  pleasing  in  ap- 
pearance and  address,  by  no  means  the  unlicked  cub  and  ignorant  boor  he  has 
been  represented,  neither  smoke  nor  drank  nor  gambled,  but  "he  could  say 
'damn'  !"  Climbing  a  hill  with  a  load  of  oil,  the  end-board  dropped  out  and  five 
barrels  of  crude  wabbled  over  the  steep  bank.  It  was  exasperating  and  the 
spectators  expected  a  special  outburst.  Steele  "winked  the  other  eye"  and 
remarked  placidly  :  "  Boys,  it's  no  use  trying  to  do  justice  to  this  occasion." 
The  shy  youth,  living  frugally  and  not  the  type  people  would  associate  with 
unprecedented  antics,  was  to  figure  in  song  and  story  and  be  advertised  more 
widely  than  the  sea-serpent  or  Barnum's  woolly-horse.  Millions  who  never 
heard  of  John  Smith,  Dr.  Mary  Waiker  or  Baby  McKee  have  heard  and  read 
and  talked  about  the  one-and-only  "Coal-Oil  Johnnie." 

The  future  candidate  for  minstrel-gags  and  newspaper-space  was  hauling 
oil  when  a  neighbor  ran  to  tell  him  of  Mrs.  McClintock's  death.  He  hastened 
home.  A  search  of  the  premises  disclosed  two-hundred-thousand  dollars  the 
old  lady  had  hoarded.  Wm.  Blackstone,  appointed  his  guardian,  restricted  the 
minor  to  a  reasonable  allowance.  The  young  man's  conduct  was  irreproachable 
until  he  attained  his  majority.  His  income  was  enormous.  Mr.  Blackstone  paid 
him  three-hundred-thousand  dollars  in  a  lump  and  he  resolved  to  "  see  some  of 
the  world. "  He  saw  it,  not  through  smoked  glass  either.  His  escapades  sup- 
plied no  end  of  material  for  gossip.  Many  tales  concerning  him  were  exaggera- 
tions and  many  pure  inventions.  Demure,  slow-going  Philadelphia  he  colored 
a  flaming  vermilion.  He  gave  away  carriages  after  a  single  drive,  kept  open- 
house  in  a  big  hotel  and  squandered  thousands  of  dollars  a  day.  Seth  Slocum 
was  "showing  him  the  sights"  and  he  fell  an  easy  victim  to  blacklegs  and 
swindlers.  He  ordered  champagne  by  the  dozen  baskets  and  treated  theatrical 
companies  to  the  costliest  wine-suppers.  Gay  ballet  girls  at  Fox's  old  play- 
house told  spicy  stories  of  these  midnight  frolics.  To  a  negro-comedian,  who 
sang  a  song  that  pleased  him,  he  handed  a  thousand-dollar  pin.  He  would 
walk  the  streets  with  bank-bills  stuck  in  the  buttonholes  of  his  coat  for  Young 
America  to  grab.  He  courted  club- men  and  spent  cash  like  the  Count  of  Monte 
Cristo.  John  Morrissey  sat  a  night  with  him  at  cards  in  his  Saratoga  gambling- 
house,  cleaning  him  out  of  many  thousands.  Leeches  bled  him  and  sharpers 
fleeced  him  mercilessly.  He  was  a  spendthrift,  but  he  didn't  light  cigars  with 


144  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

hundred-dollar  bills,  buy  a  Philadelphia  hotel  to  give  a  chum  or  destroy  money 
"for  fun."     Usually  somebody  benefited  by  his  extravagances. 

Occasionally  his  prodigality  assumed  a  sensible  phase.  Twenty-eight-hun- 
dred  dollars,  one  day's  receipts  from  his  wells  and  royalty,  went  toward  the 
erection  of  the  soldiers'  monument— a  magnificent  shaft  of  white  marble— in 
the  Franklin  park.  Except  Dan  Rice's  five-thousand  memorial  at  Girard,  Erie 
county,  this  was  the  first  monument  in  the  Union  to  the  fallen  heroes  of  the 
civil  war.  Ten,  twenty  or  fifty  dollars  frequently  gladdened  the  poor  who  asked 
for  relief.  He  lavished  fine  clothes  and  diamonds  on  a  minstrel-troupe,  touring 
the  country  and  entertaining  crowds  in  the  oil-regions.  John  W.  Gaylord,  a 
famous  artist  in  burnt-cork  and  member  of  the  troupe,  has  furnished  these 
details  : 

"Yes,  'Coal-Oil  Johnnie'  was  my  particular  friend  in  his  palmiest  days.  I  was  his  room- 
mate when  he  cut  the  shines  that  celebrated  him  as  the  most  eccentric  millionaire  on  earth.  I 
was  with  the  Skiff  &  Gaylord  minstrels.  Johnnie  saw  us  perform  in  Philadelphia,  got  stuck  on 
the  business  and  bought  one-third  interest  in  the  show.  His  first  move  was  to  get  five-thousand 
dollars'  worth  of  woodcuts  at  his  own  expense.  They  were  all  the  way  from  a  one-sheet  to  a 
twenty-four-sheet  in  size  and  the  largest  amount  any  concern  had  ever  owned.  The  cartoon, 
which  attracted  so  much  attention,  of  '  Bring  That  Skiff  Over  Here,'  was  in  the  lot.  We  went 
on  the  road,  did  a  monstrous  business  everywhere,  turned  people  away  and  were  prosperous. 

"  Reaching  Utica,  N.  Y.,  Johnnie  treated  to  a  supper  for  the  company,  which  cost  one-thou- 
sand dollars.  He  then  conceived  the  idea  of  traveling  by  his  own  train  and  purchased  an  engine, 
a  sleeper  and  a  baggage-car.  Dates  for  two  weeks  were  cancelled  and  we  went  junketing, 
Johnnie  footing  the  bills.  At  Erie  we  had  a  five-hundred-dollar  supper;  and  so  it  went.  It  was 
here  that  Johnnie  bought  his  first  hack.  After  a  short  ride  he  presented  it  to  the  driver.  Our 
dates  being  cancelled,  Johnnie  insisted  upon  indemnifying  us  for  the  loss  of  time.  He  paid  all 
salaries,  estimated  the  probable  business  receipts  npon  the  basis  of  packed  houses  and  paid  that 
also  to  our  treasurer. 

"  In  Chicago  he  gave  another  exhibition  of  his  eccentric  traits.  He  leased  the  Academy  of 
Music  for  the  season  and  we  did  a  big  business.  Finally  he  proposed  a  benefit  for  Skiff  &  Gaylord 
and  sent  over  to  rent  the  Crosby  Opera-House,  then  the  finest  in  the  country.  The  manager  sent 
back  the  insolent  reply  :  '  We  won't  rent  our  house  for  an  infernal  nigger-show.'  Johnnie  got 
warm  in  the  collar.  He  went  down  to  their  office  in  Root  &  Cady's  music-store. 

"  '  What  will  you  take  for  your  house  and  sell  it  outright  ?'  he  asked  Mr.  Root. 

"  '  I  don't  want  to  sell.' 

"  '  I'll  give  you  a  liberal  price.     Money  is  no  object.' 

"  Then  Johnnie  pulled  out  a  roll  from  his  valise,  counted  out  two-hundred-thousand  dollars 
and  asked  Root  if  that  was  an  object.  Mr.  Root  was  thunderstruck.  '  If  you  are  that  kind  of  a 
man  you  can  have  the  house  for  the  benefit  free  of  charge.'  The  benefit  was  the  biggest  success 
ever  known  in  minstrelsy.  The  receipts  were  forty-five-hundred  dollars  and  more  were  turned 
away  than  could  be  given  admission.  Next  day  Johnnie  hunted  up  one  of  the  finest  carriage- 
horses  in  the  city  and  presented  it  to  Mr.  Root  for  the  courtesy  extended. 

"  Oh,  Johnnie  was  a  prince  with  his  money.  I  have  seen  him  spend  as  high  as  one-hundred- 
thousand  dollars  in  one  day.  That  was  the  time  he  hired  the  Continental  Hotel  in  Philadelphia 
and  wanted  to  buy  the  Girard  House.  He  went  to  the  Continental  and  politely  said  to  the  clerk: 
•  Will  you  please  tell  the  proprietor  that  J.  W.  Steele  wishes  to  see  him?'  'No,  sir,'  said  the 
clerk  ;  '  the  landlord  is  busy.'  Johnnie  suggested  he  could  make  it  pay  the  clerk  to  accommodate 
the  whim.  The  clerk  became  disdainful  and  Johnnie  tossed  a  bell-boy  a  twenty-dollar  gold-piece 
with  the  request.  The  result  was  an  interview  with  the  landlord.  Johnnie  claimed  he  had  been 
ill-treated  and  requested  the  summary  dismissal  of  the  clerk.  The  proprietor  refused  and 
Johnnie  offered  to  buy  the  hotel.  The  man  said  he  could  not  sell,  because  he  was  not  the  entire 
owner.  A  bargain  was  made  to  lease  it  one  day  for  eight-thousand  dollars.  The  cash  was  paid 
over  and  Johnnie  installed  as  landlord.  He  made  me  bell-boy,  while  Slocum  officiated  as  clerk. 
The  doors  were  thrown  open  and  every  guest  in  the  house  had  his  fill  of  wine  and  edibles  free  of 
cost.  A  huge  placard  was  posted  in  front  of  the  hotel:  'Open-house  to-day;  everything  free; 
all  are  welcome  !'  It  was  a  merry  lark.  The  whole  city  seemed  to  catch  on  and  the  house  was 
full.  When  Johnnie  thought  he  had  had  fun  enough  he  turned  the  hostelry  over  to  the  landlord, 
who  reinstated  the  odious  clerk.  Here  was  a  howdedo.  Johnnie  was  frantic  with  rage.  He 
went  over  to  the  Girard  and  tried  to  buy  it.  He  arranged  with  the  proprietor  to  '  buck  '  the  Con- 


THE    VALLEY  OF  PETROLEUM. 


145 


tinental  by  making  the  prices  so  low  that  everybody  would  come  there.     The  Continental  did 
mighty  little  business  so  long  as  the  arrangement  lasted. 

"  The  day  of  the  hotel  transaction  we  were  up  on  Arch  street.  A  rain  setting  in,  Johnnie 
approached  a  hack  in  front  of  a  fashionable  store  and  tried  to  engage  it  to  carry  us  up  to  the 
Girard.  The  driver  said  it  was  impossible,  as  he  had  a  party  in  the  store.  Johnnie  tossed  him  a 
five-hundred-dollar  bill  and  the  hackman  said  he  would  risk  it.  When  we  arrived  at  the  hotel 
Johnnie  said  :  'See  here,  Cabby,  you're  a  likely  fellow.  How  would  you  like  to  own  that  rig?' 
The  driver  thought  he  was  joking,  but  Johnnie  handed  him  two-thousand  dollars.  A  half-hour 
later  the  delighted  driver  returned  with  the  statement  that  the  purchase  had  been  effected. 
Johnnie  gave  him  a  thousand  more  to  buy  a  stable  and  that  man  to-day  is  the  wealthiest  hack- 
owner  in  Philadelphia." 

Steele  reached  the  end  of  his  string  and  the  farm  was  sold  in  1866.  When 
he  was  flying  the  highest  Captain  J.  J.  Vandergrift  and  T.  H.  Williams  kindly 
urged  him  to  save  some  of  his  money.  He  thanked  them  for  the  friendly  advice, 
said  he  had  made  a  living  by  hauling  oil  and  could  do  so  again  if  necessary,  but 
he  couldn't  rest  until  he  had  spent  that  fortune.  He  spent  a  million  and  got 
the  "rest."  Returning  to  Oildom  "dead  broke,"  he  secured  the  position  of 
baggage-master  at  Rouseville  station.  He  attended  to  his  duties  punctually, 
was  a  model  of  domestic  virtue  and  a  most  popular,  obliging  official.  Happily 
his  wife  had  saved  something  and  the  reunited  couple  got  along  swimmingly. 
Next  he  opened  a  meat-market  at  Franklin,  built  up  a  nice  business,  sold  the 
shop  and  moved  to  Ashland,  Nebraska.  He  farmed,  laid  up  money  and  en- 
tered the  service  of  the  Chicago,  Burlington  &  Quincy  Railroad  some  years  ago 
as  baggage-master.  His  manly  son,  whom  he  educated  splendidly,  is  telegraph- 
operator  at  Ashland  station.  The  father,  "steady  as  a  clock,"  is  industrious, 
reliable  and  deservedly  esteemed.  Recently  a  fresh  crop  of  stories  regarding 
him  has  been  circulated,  but  he  minds  his  own  affairs  and  is  not  one  whit  puffed 
up  that  the  latest  rival  of  Pears  and  Babbitt  has  just  brought  out  a  brand  of 
"Coal-Oil  Johnnie  Soap." 

John  McClintock's  farm  of  two-hundred  acres,  east  of  Steele  and  south  of 
Rynd,  Chase  &  Alden  leased  in  September  of  1859,  for  one-half  the  oil.  B.  R. 
Alden  was  a  naval  officer,  disabled  from  wounds  received  in  California,  and  an 
oil-seeker  at  Cuba,  New  York.  A  hundred  wells  rendered  the  farm  extremely 
productive.  The  Anderson,  sunk  in  1861  near  the  southeast  corner,  on  Cherry 
Run,  flowed  constantly  three  years,  waning  gradually  from  two-hundred  barrels 
to  twenty.  Efforts  to  stop  the  flow  in  1862,  when  oil  dropped  to  ten  or  fifteen 
cents,  merely  imbued  it  with  fresh  vigor.  Anderson  thought  the  oil-business 
had  gone  to  the  bow-wows  and  deemed  himself  lucky  to  get  seven-thousand 
dollars  in  the  fall  for  the  well.  It  earned  one-hundred-thousand  dollars  subse- 
quently and  then  sold  for  sixty-thousand.  The  Excelsior  produced  fifty-thou- 
sand barrels  before  the  interference  with  the  Hammond  destroyed  both.  The 
Wheeler,  Wright  &  Hall,  Alice  Lee,  Jew,  Deming,  Haines  and  Taft  wells  were 
choice  specimens.  William  and  Robert  Orr's  Auburn  Oil- Works  and  the  Penne- 
chuck  Refinery  chucked  six-hundred  barrels  a  week  into  the  stills.  The  McClin- 
tocks  have  migrated  from  Venango.  Some  are  in  heaven,  some  in  Crawford 
county  and  some  in  the  west.  If  Joseph  Cooke's  conundrum — "Does  Death 
End  All?" — be  negatived,  there  ought  to  be  a  grand  reunion  when  they  meet 
in  the  New  Jerusalem  and  talk  over  their  experiences  on  Oil  Creek. 

Eight  miles  east  of  Titusville,  at  Enterprise,  JohnL.  and  Foster  W.  Mitchell, 
sons  of  a  pioneer  settler  of  Allegheny  township,  were  lumbering  and  merchan- 
dising in  1859.  They  had  worked  on  the  farm  and  learned  blacksmithing  from 
their  father.  The  report  of  Col.  Drake's  well  stirred  the  little  hamlet.  John 
L.  Mitchell  mounted  a  horse  and  rode  at  a  John-Gilpin  gallop  to  lease  Archibald 


i46 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


Buchanan's  big  farm,  on  both  sides  of  Oil  Creek  and  Cherry  Run.  The  old 
man  agreed  to  his  terms,  a  lease  was  executed,  the  rosy-cheeked  mistress  and 
all  the  pupils  in  the  log  school-house  who  could  write  witnessed  the  signatures 
and  Mitchell  rode  back  with  the  document  in  his  pocket.  He  also  leased  John 
Buchanan's  two-hundred  acres,  south  of  Archibald  Buchanan's  three-hundred, 
on  the  same  terms — one-fourth  the  oil  for  ninety-nine  years.  Forming  a  partner- 
ship with  Henry  R.  Rouse  and  Samuel  Q.  Brown,  he  "kicked  down"  the  first 
well  in  1860  to  the  first  sand.  It  pumped  ten  barrels  a  day  and  was  bought  by 


A.  Potter,  who  sank  it  and     ^^ 
sand  in  1861 
months,  No. 


another  to  the  third 
hundred-barreler  for 
hands  four  times, 
was  bought  in  1865 
by  Gould  &  Stowell 
and  produced  oil — 
it  pumped  for  fifteen 
years— that  sold  for 
two  -  hundred  -  and  - 
ninety-thousand  dol- 
lars !  This  veteran 
was  the  third  or 
fo  u  r  t  h  producing- 
well  in  the  region. 
The  Curtis,  usually 
considered  "the first 
flowing- well,"  in 
July  of  1860  spouted 
freely  at  two-hun- 

^/^  „.- ""  dred    feet.      It    was 

not  tubed  and  sur- 
face-water soon  mastered  the  flow  of  oil.  The 
Brawley — sixty-thousand  barrels  in  eight  months 
—the  Goble  &  Flower,  the  Shaft,  the  Sherman 
and  the  Nausbaum  were  moguls  of  1861-2.  Beech 
&  Gillett,  Alfred  Willoughby,  Taylor  &  Rockwell,  Shreve  &  Glass,  Allen  Wright, 
Wesley  Chambers — his  infectious  laugh  could  be  heard  five  squares — and  a  host 
of  companies  operated  in  1861-2-3.  Franklin  S.  Tarbell,  E.  M.  Hukell,  E.  C. 
Bradley,  Harmon  Camp,  George  Long  and  J.  T.  Jones  arrived  later.  The  terri- 
tory was  singularly  profitable.  Mitchell  &  Brown  erected  a  refinery,  divided  the 
tracts  into  hundreds  of  acre-plots  for  leases  and  laid  out  the  town  of  Buchanan 
Farm.  Allen  Wright,  president  of  a  local  oil-company,  in  February  of  1861 
printed  his  letter-heads  "  Rouseville"  and  the  name  was  adopted  unanimously. 
Rouseville  grew  swiftly  and  fora  time  was  headquarters  of  the  oil  industry. 
Churches  and  schools  arose,  good  people  feeling  that  man  lives  not  by  oil 
alone  any  more  than  by  bread.  Dwellings  extended  up  Cherry  Run  and  the 
slopes  of  Mt.  Pisgah.  Wells  and  tanks  covered  the  flats  and  there  were  few 
drones  in  the  busy  hive.  If  Satan  found  mischief  for  the  idle  only,  he  would  have 
starved  in  Rouseville.  Stores  and  shops  multiplied.  James  White  fitted  up  an 
opera-house  and  C.  L.  Stowell  opened  a  bank.  Henry  Patchen  conducted  the 
first  hotel.  N.  W.  Read  enacted  the  role  of  "  Petroleum  V.  Nasby,  wich  iz  post- 
master." The  receipts  in  1869  exceeded  twenty-five-thousand  dollars.  Miss 
Nettie  Dickinson,  afterwards  in  full  charge  of  the  money-order  department  at 


THE   VALLEY  OF  PETROLEUM.  147 

Pittsburg  and  partner  with  Miss  Annie  Burke  in  a  flourishing  Oil-City  book- 
store, ran  the  office  in  an  efficient  style  Postmaster-General  Wilson  would  have 
applauded.  Yet  moss-backed  croakers  in  pants,  left  over  from  the  Pliocene 
period,  think  the  gentle  sex  has  no  business  with  business  !  The  town  reached 
high-water  mark  early  in  the  seventies,  the  population  grazing  nine-thousand. 
Production  declined,  new  fields  attracted  live  operators  and  in  1880  the  inhabi- 
tants numbered  seven-hundred,  twice  the  present  figure.  Rouseville  will  go 
down  in  history  as  an  oil-town  noted  for  progressiveness,  intelligence,  crooked 
streets  and  girls  "pretty  as  a  picture." 

The  Buchanan  Farm  Oil-Company  purchased  Mitchell  &  Brown's  interest 
and  the  Buchanan  Royalty  Oil-Company  acquired  the  one-fourth  held  by  the 
land-owners.  Both  realized  heavily,  the  Royalty  Company  paying  its  stock- 
holders—Arnold Plumer,  William  Haldeman  and  Dr.  C.  E.  Cooper  were  prin- 
cipals—about a  million  dollars.  The  senior  Buchanan,  after  receiving  two  or 
three-hundred-thousand  dollars— fifty  times  the  sum  he  would  ever  have  gained 
farming— often  denounced  "th'  pirates  that  robbed  an  old  man,  buyin'  th'  farm 
he  could  'ave  sold  two  year  later  fur  two  millyun  !"  The  old  man  has  been  out 
of  pirate-range  twenty-five  years  and  the  Buchanan  families  are  scattered. 
Most  of  the  old-time  operators  have  handed  in  their  final  account.  Poor  Fred 
Rockwell  has  mouldered  into  dust.  Wright,  Camp,  Taylor,  Beech,  Long, 
Shreve,  Haldeman,  Hostetter,  Cooper,  Col.  Gibson  and  Frank  Irwin  are 
"grav'd  in  the  hollow  ground."  Death  claimed  "Hi"  Whiting  in  Florida  and 
last  March  stilled  the  cheery  voice  of  Wesley  Chambers.  The  earnest,  pleading 
tones  of  the  Rev.  R.  M.  Brown  will  be  heard  no  more  this  side  the  walls  of  jasper 
and  the  gates  of  pearl. 

A  millionaire  by  his  persevering  application  and  wise  management,  John  L. 
Mitchell  married  Miss  Hattie  A.  Raymond  and  settled  at  Franklin.  He  organ- 
ized the  Exchange  Bank  in  1871  and  was  its  president  until  ill-health  obliged  him 
to  resign.  Amply  endowed  with  worldly  goods,  fortunate  in  his  home  and  fam- 
ily, free  from  business-cares,  without  cause  to  bemoan  the  past  or  fear  the  future, 
he  is  serenely  enjoying  the  evening  of  life.  Equally  successful  and  favored, 
Foster  W.  Mitchell  also  located  at  the  county-seat  and  built  the  Exchange 
Hotel.  He  operated  extensively  on  Oil  Creek  and  in  the  northern  districts, 
developed  the  Shaw  farm  and  established  a  bank  at  Rouseville,  subsequently 
transferring  it  to  Oil  City.  He  was  active  in  politics  and  in  the  producers'  organ- 
izations, treasurer  of  the  Centennial  Commission  and  an  influential  force  in  the 
Oil  Exchange.  Enterprising,  liberal  and  discerning,  quick  to  plan  and  execute, 
he  is  a  public-spirited,  prominent  citizen.  David  H.  Mitchell  likewise  gained  a 
fortune  in  oil,  founded  a  bank  and  died  at  Titusville.  The  surviving  brothers, 
now  retired  bankers  and  living  quietly,  rank  with  the  most  substantial  financiers 
of  Northwestern  Pennsylvania.  Samuel  Q.  Brown,  their  relative  and  associate 
in  various  undertakings,  was  a  merchant  and  banker  at  Pleasantville.  Retiring 
from  these  pursuits,  he  removed  to  Philadelphia  and  then  to  New  York  to  over- 
see the  financial  work  of  the  Tidewater  Pipe-Line. 

Born  in  New  York  in  1824,  Henry  R.  Rouse  studied  law,  taught  school  in 
Warren  county  and  engaged  in  lumbering  and  storekeeping  at  Enterprise.  He 
served  in  the  legislatures  of  1859-60,  acquitting  himself  manfully.  Promptly 
catching  the  inspiration  of  the  hour,  he  shared  with  William  Barnsdall  and 
Boone  Meade  the  honor  of  putting  down  the  third  oil-well  in  Pennsylvania. 
With  John  L.  Mitchell  and  Samuel  Q.  Brown  he  leased  the  Buchanan  farm  and 
invested  in  oil-lands  generally.  Fabulous  wealth  began  to  reward  his  efforts. 


148  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

Had  he  lived  "he  would  have  been  a  giant  or  a  bankrupt  in  petroleum." 
Operations  on  the  John  Buchanan  farm  were  pushed  actively.  Near  the  upper 
line  of  the  farm,  on  the  east  side  of  Oil  Creek,  at  the  foot  of  the  hill,  Merrick 
&  Co.  drilled  a  well  in  1861,  eight  rods  from  the  Wadsworth.  On  April  seven- 
teenth, at  the  depth  of  three-hundred  feet,  gas,  water  and  oil  rushed  up,  fairly 
lifting  the  tools  out  of  the  hole.  The  evening  was  damp  and  the  atmosphere 
surcharged  with  gas.  People  ran  with  shovels  to  dig  trenches  and  throw  up  a 
bank  to  hold  the  oil,  no  tanks  having  been  provided.  Mr.  Rouse  and  George 
H.  Dimick,  his  clerk  and  cashier,  with  six  others,  had  eaten  supper  and  were 
sitting  in  Anthony's  Hotel  discussing  the  fall  of  Fort  Sumter.  A  laborer  at  the 
Merrick  well  bounded  into  the  room  to  say  that  a  vein  of  oil  had  been  struck 
and  barrels  were  wanted.  All  ran  to  the  well  but  Dimick,  who  went  to  send 
barrels.  Finishing  this  errand,  he  hastened  towards  the  well.  A  frightful  explo- 
sion hurled  him  to  the  earth.  Smouldering  coals  under  the  Wadsworth  boiler 
had  ignited  the  gas.  In  an  instant  the  two  wells,  tanks  and  an  acre  of  ground 
saturated  with  oil  were  in  flames,  enveloping  ninety  or  a  hundred  persons.  Men 
digging  the  ditch  or  dipping  the  oil  wilted  like  leaves  in  a  gale.  Horrible  shrieks 
rent  the  air.  Dense .  volumes  of  black  smoke  ascended.  Tongues  of  flame 
leaped  hundreds  of  feet.  One  poor  fellow,  charred  to  the  bone,  died  screaming 
with  agony  over  his  supposed  arrival  in  hell.  Victims  perished  scarcely  a  step 
from  safety.  Rouse  stood  near  the  derrick  at  the  fatal  moment.  Blinded  by 
the  first  flash,  he  stumbled  forward  and  fell  into  the  marshy  soil.  Throwing 
valuable  papers  and  a  wallet  of  money  beyond  the  circuit  of  fire,  he  struggled 
to  his  feet,  groped  a  dozen  paces  and  fell  again.  Two  men  dashed  into  the  sea 
of  flame  and  dragged  him  forth,  his  flesh  baked  and  his  clothing  a  handful  of 
shreds.  He  was  carried  to  a  shanty  and  gasped  through  five  hours  of  excru- 
ciating torture.  His  wonderful  self-possession  never  deserted  him,  no  word  or 
act  betraying  his  fearful  suffering.  Although  obliged  to  sip  water  from  a  spoon 
at  every  breath,  he  dictated  a  concise  will,  devising  the  bulk  of  his  estate  in  trust 
to  improve  the  roads  and  benefit  the  poor  of  Warren  county.  Relatives  and 
intimate  friends,  his  clerk  and  hired  boy,  the  men  who  bore  him  from  the  broil- 
ing furnace  and  honest  debtors  were  remembered.  This  dire  calamity  blotted 
out  nineteen  lives  and  disfigured  thirteen  men  and  boys  permanently.  The 
blazing  oil  was  smothered  with  dirt  the  third  day.  Tubing  was  put  in  the  well, 
which  flowed  ten-thousand  barrels  in  a  week  and  then  ceased.  Nothing  is  left 
to  mark  the  scene  of  the  sad  tragedy.  The  Merrick,  Wadsworth,  Haldeman, 
Clark  &  Banks,  Trundy,  Comet  and  Imperial  wells,  the  tanks  and  the  dwellings 
have  been  obliterated.  Dr.  S.  S.  Christy— he  was  Oil  City's  first  druggist — Allen 
Wright,  N.  F.  Jones,  W.  B.  Williams  and  William  H.  Kinter,  five  of  the  six 
witnesses  to  Rouse's  remarkable  will,  are  in  eternity,  Z.  Martin  alone  remaining. 
Warren's  greatest  benefactor,  the  interest  of  the  half-million  dollars  Rouse 
bequeathed  to  the  county  has  improved  roads,  constructed  bridges  and  provided 
a  poor-house  at  Youngsville.  Rouse  was  distinguished  for  noble  traits,  warm 
impulses,  strong  attachments,  energy  and  decision  of  character.  He  dispensed 
his  bounty  lavishly.  It  was  a  favorite  habit  to  pick  up  needy  children,  furnish 
them  with  clothes  and  shoes  and  send  them  home  with  baskets  of  provisions. 
He  did  not  forget  his  days  of  trial  and  poverty.  His  religious  views  were  pecu- 
liar. While  reverencing  the  Creator,  he  despised  narrow  creeds,  deprecated 
popular  notions  of  worship  and  had  no  dread  of  the  hereafter.  To  a  preacher, 
in  the  little  group  that  watched  his  fading  life,  who  desired  an  hour  before  the 
end  to  administer  consolation,  he  replied  :  "  My  account  is  made  up.  If  I  am 


THE    VALLEY  OF  PETROLEUM.  149 

a  debtor,  it  would  be  cowardly  to  ask  for  credit  now.  I  do  not  care  to  discuss 
the  matter."  He  directed  that  his  funeral  be  without  display,  that  no  sermon  be 
preached  and  that  he  be  laid  beside  his  mother  at  Westfield,  New  York.  Thus 
lived  and  died  Henry  R.  Rouse,  of  small  stature  and  light  frame,  but  dowered 
with  rare  talents  and  heroic  soul.  Perhaps  at  the  Judgment  Day,  when  deeds 
outweigh  words,  many  a  strict  Pharisee  may  wish  he  could  change  places  with 
the  man  whose  memory  the  poor  devoutly  bless.  As  W.  A.  Croffut  has  written 
of  James  Baker  in  "  The  Mine  at  Calumet ": 

11  '  Perfess  '?    He  didn't  perfess.    He  hed 

One  simple  way  all  through — 
He  merely  practiced  an'  he  sed 

That  that  wud  hev  to  do. 
'  Under  conviction'  ?    The  idee ! 

He  never  done  a  thing 
To  be  convicted  fer.    Why,  he 
Wuz  straighter  than  a  string." 

Cherry  Run,  once  the  ripest  cherry  in  the  orchard,  had  a  satisfactory  run. 
A  spice  of  romance  flavored  its  actual  realities.  Not  two  miles  up  the  stream 
William  Reed,  in  1863,  drilled  a  dry-hole  six-hundred  feet  deep.  Two  miles 
farther,  in  the  vicinity  of  Plumer,  a  test  well  was  sunk  seven-hundred  feet,  with 
no  better  result.  Wells  near  the  mouth  of  the  ravine  produced  very  lightly. 
Fifty-thousand  dollars  would  have  been  an  extreme  price  for  all  the  land  from 
Rouseville  to  Plumer,  the  tasteful  village  Henry  McCalmont  named  in  honor  of 
Arnold  Plumer.  In  May  of  1864  Taylor  &  Rockwell  opened  a  fresh  vein  on  the 
run.  At  two-hundred  feet  their  well  threw  oil  above  the  derrick  and  flowed 
sixty  barrels  a  day  regularly.  Operators  reversed  their  opinion  of  the  territory. 
To  the  surprise  of  his  acquaintances,  who  deemed  him  demented,  Reed  started 
another  well  four  rods  below  his  failure  of  the  previous  year.  It  was  on  the 
right  bank  of  the  run,  on  a  five-acre  patch  bought  from  John  Rynd  in  1861  by 
Thomas  Duff,  who  sold  two  acres  to  Robert  Criswell.  Reed  was  not  over- 
stocked with  cash  and  Criswell  joined  forces  with  him  to  sink  the  second  well. 
I.  N.  Frazer  took  one-third  interest.  At  the  proper  depth  the  outlook  was 
gloomy.  The  sand  appeared  good,  but  days  of  pumping  failed  to  bring  oil. 
On  July  eighteenth,  1864,  the  well  commenced  flowing  three-hundred  barrels  a 
day,  holding  out  at  this  rate  for  months.  Criswell  realized  thirty-thousand  dol- 
lars from  his  share  of  the  oil  and  then  sold  his  one-fourth  interest  in  the  land 
and  well  for  two-hundred-and-eighty-thousand  to  the  Mingo  Oil-Company.  He 
operated  in  the  Butler  field,  lived  at  Monterey,  removed  to  Ohio  and  died  near 
Cincinnati.  One  son,  David  S.,  a  well-known  producer,  resides  at  Oil  City; 
another,  Robert  W.,  is  on  the  editorial  staff  of  a  New- York  daily.  Frazer  sold 
for  one-hundred-thousand  dollars  and  next  loomed  up  as  "the  discoverer  of 
Pithole."  Reed  sold  to  Bishop  &  Bissell  for  two-hundred-thousand  dollars, 
after  pocketing  seventy-five-thousand  from  oil.  Coming  to  Venango  county 
with  Frederic  Prentice  in  1859,  he  drilled  wells  by  contract,  sometimes  "a  solid 
Muldoon  "  and  sometimes  ' '  a  broken  Reed."  He  returned  east — his  birthplace 
—with  the  proceeds  of  the  world-famed  well  bearing  his  name.  An  idea  haunted 
him  that  Captain  Kidd's  treasure  was  buried  at  a  certain  part  of  the  Atlantic 
coast.  He  boarded  at  a  house  on  the  shore  and  hunted  land  and  sea  for  the 
hidden  deposit.  He  would  dig  in  the  sand,  sail  out  some  distance  and  peer  into 
the  water.  One  day  he  went  off  in  his  skiff,  a  storm  arose,  the  boat  drifted 
away  and  that  was  the  last  ever  seen  of  William  Reed. 

The  Reed  well  put  Cherry  Run  at  the  head  of  the  procession.     Within  sixty 


15° 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


days  it  enriched  Reed,  Criswell  and  Frazer  nearly  seven-hundred-thousand  dol- 
lars. The  new  owners  drilled  three  more  on  the  same  acre,  getting  back  every 
cent  of  their  purchase-money  and  fifty  per  cent,  extra  for  good  measure.  In 
other  words,  the  five-acre  collection  of  rocks  and  stumps,  with  eleven  producing 
wells  and  one  duster,  harvested  two-million  dollars  !  The  Mountain  well 
mounted  high,  the  Phillips  &  Egbert  was  a  fillip  and  the  Wadsworth  &  Wyn- 
koop  rolled  out  oil  in  wads  worth  a  wine-coop  of  gold-eagles.  The  fever  to 


lease  or  buy  a  spot  to  plant  a  derrick  burned  fiercely.  The  race  to  gorge  the 
ravine  with  rigs  and  drilling  appliances  would  shut  out  Edgar  Saltus  in  his 
"Pace  that  Kills."  Soon  three-hundred  wells  lined  the  flats  and  lofty  banks 
guarding  the  purling  streamlet.  Clanking  tools,  wheezy  engines  and  creaking 
pumps  assailed  the  ears.  Smoke  from  a  myriad  soft-coal  fires  attacked  the  eyes. 
An  endless  cavalcade  of  wagons  churned  the  soil  into  vicious  batter.  The  activ- 
ities of  the  Foster,  McElhenny,  Farrell,  Davisonand  Tarr  farms  were  condensed 
into  one  surging,  foaming  caldron,  quickening  the  pulse-beats  and  sending  the 
brain  see-sawing. 

Across  the  run  the  Curtin  Oil-Company  farmed  out  forty  acres.  The  Baker 
well,  an  October  biscuit,  flowed  one-hundred  barrels  a  day  all  the  winter  of 
1864-5  and  pumped  six  years.  Water,  bane  of  flannel-suits  and  uncased  oil- 
wells,  deluged  it  and  its  neighbors.  Hugh  Cropsey,  a  New-York  lawyer  and  last 
owner  of  the  well  nearest  the  Baker,  "  ran  engine,"  saved  a  trifle,  pulled  up 


THE    VALLEY  OF  PETROLEUM.  151 

stakes  in  1869  and  tried  his  luck  at  Pleasantville.  Returning  to  Cherry  Run,  he 
resuscitated  a  well  on  the  hill  and  was  suffocated  by  gas  in  a  tank  containing  a 
few  inches  of  fresh  crude.  His  heirs  sold  me  the  old  well,  which  pumped  nine 
months  without  varying  ten  gallons  in  any  week  and  repaid  twice  its  cost. 
Unchangeable  as  the  laws  of  the  Medes  and  Persians,  its  production  was  the 
steadiest  in  the  chronicles  of  grease.  One  Saturday  evening  N.  P.  Stone,  super- 
intendent of  the  St.  Nicholas  Oil-Company,  bought  it  from  me  at  the  original 
price.  His  men  took  charge  of  it  at  noon  on  Tuesday.  At  five  o'clock  the  well 
quit  forever,  "too  dead  to  skin  !"  Cleaning  out,  drilling  deeper,  casing,  torpe- 
doing and  weeks  of  pumping  could  not  persuade  it  to  shed  another  drop  of  oil 
or  water.  This  close  shave  was  a  small  by-play  in  a  realistic  drama  teeming 
with  incidents  far  stranger  than  "The  Strange  Adventures  of  Miss  Brown." 
B.  H.  Hulseman,  president  of  the  St.  Nicholas  Oil-Company,  was  a  wealthy 
leather-merchant  in  Philadelphia.  He  spent  much  of  his  time-on  Cherry  Run, 
lost  heavily  in  speculations,  entered  the  oil-exchange  and  died  at  Oil  City. 
Kind-hearted,  sincere  and  unpretending,  his  good  remembrance  is  a  legacy  to 
cherish  lovingly. 

Two-hundred  yards  above  the  Baker  a  half-dozen  wells  crowded  upon  a  half- 
acre.  True  to  its  title,  the  Vampire  sucked  the  life-blood  from  its  pal  and  pro- 
duced bounteously.  The  Munson,  owned  by  the  first  sacrifice  to  nitro-glycerine, 
sustained  the  credit  of  its  environment.  The  Wade  was  the  star-performer  of 
the  group.  James  Wade,  an  Ohio  teamster,  earned  money  hauling  oil.  Con- 
cluding to  wade  in,  he  secured  a  bantam  lease  and  engaged  Thomas  Donnelly 
to  drill  a  well.  It  surpassed  the  Reed,  flowing  four-hundred  barrels  a  day  at  the 
start.  Frank  Allen,  agent  of  a  gilt-edged  New- York  company,  rode  from  Oil 
City  to  see  a  well  described  to  him  as  "livelier  than  chasing  a  greased  pig  at  a 
county-fair."  His  exalted  conceptions  of  petroleum  befitted  the  representative 
of  a  company  capitalized  at  three-millions,  in  which  August  Belmont,  Russell 
Sage  and  William  B.  Astor  were  said  to  be  stockholders.  The  fuming,  gassing 
stream  of  oil  suited  him  to  a  t.  "I'll  give  you  three-hundred-thousand  dollars 
for  it,"  he  said  to  Wade,  whom  the  offer  well-nigh  paralyzed.  The  two  men 
went  into  the  grocery  close  by,  Wade  signed  a  transfer  of  the  well  and  Allen 
handed  him  a  New- York  draft.  The  happiest  being  in  the  pack,  Wade  packed 
his  carpet-bag,  hitched  his  horses  to  the  wagon,  bade  the  boys  good-bye  and 
drove  to  Oil  City  to  get  the  paper  cashed.  He  wore  greasy  clothes  and  did  not 
wear  the  air  of  a  millionaire.  ' '  Is  Mr.  Bennett  in  ?' '  he  asked  a  clerk  at  the  bank. 
"  Naw  ;  what  do  you  want ?"  was  the  reply.  "  I  want  a  draft  cashed."  "Oh, 
you  do,  eh?  I  guess  I  can  cash  it !"  The  clerk's  haughty  demeanor  fell  below 
zero  upon  beholding  the  draft.  He  invited  Wade  to  be  seated.  Mr.  Bennett, 
the  urbane  cashier,  returned  in  a  few  moments.  The  bank  hadn't  half  the  cur- 
rency to  meet  the  demand  on  the  instant.  Wade  left  directions  to  forward  the 
money  to  his  home  in  Ohio,  where  he  and  his  faithful  steeds  landed  two  days 
later.  He  bought  fine  farms  for  his  brothers  and  himself,  invested  two-hundred- 
thousand  dollars  in  government-bonds  and  wisely  enjoyed,  amid  the  peaceful 
scenes  of  agricultural  life,  the  fruits  of  his  first  and  last  oil-venture.  Few  have 
been  as  sensible,  for  the  petroleum-coast  is  encrusted  with  financial  wrecks- 
vast  fortunes  amassed  only  to  be  lost  on  the  perilous  sea  of  speculation.  The 
world  has  heard  of  the  prizes  in  the  lottery  of  oil,  while  the  blanks — tenfold 
more  numerous — are  glossed  over  by  the  glamour  of  the  Sherman,  Empire, 
Noble,  Phillips,  Reed  and  other  wells,  "familiar  as  household  words." 

Thomas  Johnson,  of  Oil  City,  held  one-eighth  of  the  Curtin  interest  and 


152  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE  OIL. 

Patrick  Johnson  had  a  bevy  of  patrician  wells  at  the  summit  of  the  tallest  hill 
in  the  valley.  The  curtain  has  been  rung  down,  the  lights  are  out,  the  players 
have  dispersed  and  none  can  hint  of  "Too  Much  Johnson."  The  farm  of  sixty 
acres  adjacent  to  the  Curtin  and  the  Criswell  nook  Hamilton  McClintock  traded 
to  Daniel  Smith  in  1858  for  a  yoke  of  oxen.  Smith  sold  it  in  1860  for  five-hun- 
dred dollars  and  sank  the  cash  in  a  dry-hole  on  Oil  Creek.  C.  J.  Cornen  and 
Henry  I.  Beers,  the  mainstay  of  the  Cherry  Run  Petroleum-Company,  bought 
the  farm  in  1863  for  sixty-five-hundred  dollars,  clearing  two-millions  from  the 
investment.  Cornen  served  as  State  Senator  in  Connecticut  and  died  in  the 
eighties.  His  sons  operate  in  Warren  county  and  down  the  Allegheny.  Mr. 
Beers,  who  settled  at  McClintockville,  for  thirty  years  has  been  prominent  in 
business  and  politics.  The  Yankee  well,  erratic  as  George  Francis  Train,  was 
the  first  glory  of  the  Smith  tract.  The  Reed  caused  a  rush  for  one-acre  leases 
at  four-thousand-dollars  bonus  and  half  the  oil.  Picking  up  gold-dollars  at  every 
step  would  have  been  less  lucrative.  The  wells  were  stayers  and  Daniel  Smith 
was  not  "a  Daniel  come  to  judgment"  in  his  estimate  of  the  farm  he  implored 
J.  W.  Sherman  to  buy  for  two-hundred-and-fifty  dollars. 

Queerly  enough,  the  farms  above  the  Smith  were  failures.  Hundreds  of 
wells  clear  up  to  Plumer  never  paid  the  expense  of  recording  the  leases.  The 
territory  was  a  roast  for  scores  of  stock-companies.  Below  Plumer  a  mile  Bruns 
&  Ludovici,  of  New  York,  built  the  Humboldt  Refinery  in  1862.  Money  was 
lavished  on  palatial  quarters  for  the  managers,  enclosed  grounds,  cut-stone 
walls,  a  pipe-line  to  Tarr  Farm  and  the  largest  refining  capacity  in  America. 
Inconvenient  location  and  improved  methods  of  competitors  forced  the  Hum- 
boldt to  retire.  Part  of  the  machinery  was  removed,  the  structures  crumbled 
and  some  of  the  dressed  stone  forms  the  foundations  of  the  National  Transit 
Building  at  Oil  City.  Plumer,  which  had  a  grist-mill,  store,  blacksmith-shop 
and  tavern  in  1840  and  four-thousand  population  in  1866,  is  quiet  as  its  briar- 
grown  graveyard.  The  Brevoort  Oil-Company,  Murray  &  Fawcett  and  John  P. 
Zane  raked  in  shekels  on  Moody  Run,  which  emptied  into  Cherry  Run  a  half- 
mile  south-west  of  the  Reed  well.  Zane,  whole-souled,  resolute  and  manly, 
operated  in  the  northern  district  and  died  at  Bradford  in  1894.  A  "forty-niner," 
he  supported  John  W.  Geary  for  Mayor  of  San  Francisco,  built  street-railways 
and  worked  gold-mines  in  California.  He  wrote  on  finance  and  petroleum, 
hated  selfishness  and  stood  firmly  on  the  platform  laid  down  in  the  beatitudes. 

Seventy-five  wells  were  drilled  on  Hamilton  McClintock's  four-hundred 
acres  in  1860-1.  Here  was  Gary's  "oil-spring"  and  expectations  of  big  wells 
soared  high.  The  best  yielded  from  one-hundred  to  three-hundred  barrels  a 
day.  Low  prices  and  the  war  led  to  the  abandonment  of  the  smaller  brood. 
A  company  bought  the  farm  in  1864.  McClintockville,  a  promising  village  on 
the  flat,  boasted  two  refineries,  stores,  a  hotel  and  the  customary  accessories,  of 
which  the  bridge  over  Oil  Creek  is  the  sole  reminder.  Near  the  upper  boundary 
of  the  farm  the  Reno  Railroad  crossed  the  valley  on  a  giddy  center- trestle  and 
timber  abutments,  not  a  splinter  of  which  remains.  General  Burnside,  the  dis- 
tinguished commander,  superintended  the  construction  of  this  mountain-line, 
designed  to  connect  Reno  and  Pithole  and  never  completed.  Occasionally  the 
dignified  general  would  be  hailed  by  a  soldier  who  had  served  under  him.  It 
was  amusing  to  behold  a  greasy  pumper,  driller  or  teamster  step  up,  clap  Burn- 
side  on  the  shoulder,  grasp  his  hand  and  exclaim  :  "  Hello,  General !  Deuced 
glad  to  see  you  !  I  was  with  you  at  Fredericksburg  !  Come  and  have  a  drink  ! ' ' 

The  Clapp  farm  of  five-hundred  acres  had  a  fair  allotment  of  long-lived 


THE    VALLEY  OF  PETROLEUM,  153 

wells.  George  H.  Bissell  and  Arnold  Plumer  bought  the  lower  half,  in  the 
closing  days  of  1859,  from  Ralph  Clapp.  The  Cornplanter  Oil  Company  pur- 
chased the  upper  half.  The  Hemlock,  Cuba,  Cornwall— a  thousand-barreler— 
and  Cornplanter,  on  the  latter  section,  were  notably  productive.  The  Williams, 
Stanton,  McKee,  Elizabeth  and  Star  whooped  it  up  on  the  Bissell-Plumer  divi- 
sion. Much  of  the  oil  in  1862-3  was  from  the  second  sand.  Four  refineries 
flourished  and  the  tract  coined  money  for  its  owners.  A  mile  east  was  the  pro- 
lific Shaw  farm,  which  put  two-hundred-thousand  dollars  into  Foster  W.  Mitch- 
ell's purse.  Graff  &  Hasson's  one-thousand  acres,  part  of  the  land  granted 
Cornplanter  in  1796,  had  a  multitude  of  medium  wells  that  produced  year  after 
year.  In  1818  the  Indian  chief,  who  loved  fire-water  dearly,  sold  his  reservation 
to  William  Connely,  of  Franklin,  and  William  Kinnear,  of  Centre  county,  for 
twenty-one-hundred-and-twenty-one  dollars.  Matthias  Stockberger  bought 
Connely's  half  in  1824  and,  with  Kinnear  and  Reuben  Noyes,  erected  the  Oil- 
Creek  furnace,  a  foundry,  mill,  warehouses  and  steamboat-landing  at  the  east 
side  of  the  mouth  of  the  stream.  William  and  Frederick  Crary  acquired  the 
business  in  1825  and  ran  it  ten  years.  William  and  Samuel  Bell  bought  it  in 
1835  and  shut  down  the  furnace  in  1849.  The  Bell  heirs  sold  it  to  Graff,  Hasson 
&  Co.  in  1856  for  seven-thousand  dollars.  James  Hasson  located  on  the  prop- 
erty with  his  family  and  farmed  five  years.  Graff  &  Hasson  sold  three-hundred 
acres  in  1864  to  the  United  Petroleum  Farms  Association  for  seven-hundred-and- 
fifty-thousand  dollars.  James  Halyday  settled  on  the  east  side  in  1803.  His 
son  James,  the  first  white  baby  in  the  neighborhood,  was  born  in  1809.  The 
Bannon  family  came  in  the  forties,  Thomas  Moran  built  the  Moran  House — it 
still  lingers — in  1845  and  died  in  1857.  Dr.  John  Nevins  arrived  in  1850  and  in 
the  fall  of  1852  John  P.  Hopewell  started  a  general  store.  Hiram  Gordon 
opened  the  "Red  Lion  Inn,"  Samuel  Thomas  shod  horses  and  three  or  four 
families  occupied  small  habitations.  And  this  was  the  place,  when  1860  dawned, 
that  was  to  become  the  petroleum-metropolis  and  be  known  wherever  men 
have  heard  a  word  of  "  English  as  she  is  spoke." 

Cornplanter  was  the  handle  of  the  humble  settlement,  towards  which  a 
stampede  began  with  the  first  glimmer  of  spring.  To  trace  the  uprising  of 
dwellings,  stores,  wharves  and  boarding-houses  would  be  as  difficult  as  per- 
petual motion.  People  huddled  in  shanties  and  lived  on  barges  moored  to  the 
bank.  Derricks  peered  up  behind  the  houses,  thronged  the  marshy  flats,  con- 
gregated on  the  slopes,  climbed  the  precipitous  bluffs  and  established  a  foothold 
on  every  ledge  of  rock.  Pumping-wells  and  flowing-wells  scented  the  atmos- 
phere with  gas  and  the  smell  of  crude.  Smoke  from  hundreds  of  engine-houses, 
black,  sooty  and  defiling,  discolored  the  grass  and  foliage.  Mud  was  every- 
where, deep,  unlimited,  universal — yellow  mud  from  the  newer  territory — dark, 
repulsive,  oily  mud  around  the  wells — sticky,  tricky,  spattering  mud  on  the 
streets  and  in  the  yards.  J.  B.  Reynolds,  of  Clarion  county,  and  Calvin  and 
William  J.  McComb,  of  Pittsburg,  opened  the  first  store  under  the  new  order  of 
things  in  March  of  1860.  T.  H.  and  William  M.  Williams  joined  the  firm.  They 
withdrew  to  open  the  Pittsburg  store  next  door.  Robson's  hardware-store  was 
farther  up  the  main  street,  on  the  east  side,  which  ended  abruptly  at  Cottage 
Hill.  William  P.  Baillee — he  lives  in  Detroit — and  William  Janes  built  the  first 
refinery,  on  the  same  street,  in  1861,  a  year  of  unexampled  activity.  The  plant, 
which  attracted  people  from  all  parts  of  the  country — Mr.  Baillee  called  it  a 
"  pocket-still " — was  enlarged  into  a  refinery  of  five  stills,  with  an  output  of  two- 
hundred  barrels  of  refined  oil  every  twenty-four  hours.  Fire  destroyed  it  and 


154 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


the  firm  built  another  on  the  flats  near  by.  On  the  west  side,  at  the  foot  of  a 
steep  cliff,  Dr.  S.  S.  Christy  opened  a  drug-store.  Houses,  shops,  offices,  hotels 
and  saloons  hung  against  the  side  of  the  hill  or  sat  loosely  on  heaps  of  earth  by 


MAIN    STREK1 


the  creek  and  river.  One  evening  a  half-dozen  congenial  spirits  met  in  Williams 
&  Brother's  store.  J.  B.  Reynolds,  afterwards  a  banker,  who  died  several  years 
since,  thought  Cornplanter  ought  to  be  discarded  and  a  new  name  given  the 
growing  town.  He  suggested  one  which  was  heartily  approved.  Liquid  re- 
freshments were  ordered  and  the  infant  was  appropriately  baptized  OIL  CITY. 

Peter  Graff  was  laid  to  rest  years  ago.  The  venerable  James  Hasson  sleeps 
in  the  Franklin  cemetery.  His  son,  Captain  William  Hasson,  is  an  honored 
resident  of  the  city  that  owes  much  to  his  enterprise  and  liberality.  Capable, 
broad-minded  and  trustworthy,  he  has  been  earnest  in  promoting  the  best  inter- 
ests of  the  community,  the  region  and  the  state.  A  recent  benefaction  was  his 
splendid  gift  of  a  public  park — forty  acres — on  Cottage  Hill.  He  was  the  first 
burgess  and  served  with  conspicuous  ability  in  the  council  and  the  legislature. 
Alike  as  a  producer,  banker,  citizen,  municipal  officer  and  lawgiver,  Captain 
Hasson  has  shown  himself  "every  inch  a  manly  man." 

When  you  talk  of  any  better  town  than  Oil  City,  of  any  better  section  than 
the  oil-regions,  of  any  better  people  than  the  oilmen,  of  any  better  state  than 
Pennsylvania,  "every  potato  winks  its  eye,  every  cabbage  shakes  its  head, 
every  beet  grows  red  in  the  face,  every  onion  gets  stronger,  every  sheaf  of  grain 
is  shocked,  every  stalk  of  rye  strokes  its  beard,  every  hill  of  corn  pricks  up  its 
ears,  every  foot  of  ground  kicks  ' '  and  every  tree  barks  in  indignant  dissent. 

Such  was  the  narrow  ravine,  nowhere  sixty  rods  in  width,  that  figured  so 
grandly  as  the  Valley  of  Petroleum. 


A  SPLASH  ON  OIL  CREEK. 

The  dark  mud  of  Oil  Creek  !    Unbeautiful  mud, 
That  couldn't  and  wouldn't  be  nipped  in  the  bud ! 
Quite  irreclaimable, 
Wholly  untamable; 
There  it  was,  not  a  doubt  of  it, 
People  couldn't  keep  out  of  it ; 
On  all  sides  they  found  it, 
So  deep  none  dare  sound  it — 
No  way  to  get  'round  it. 
To  their  necks  babies  crept  in  it, 
To  their  chins  big  men  slept  in  it ; 
Ladies — bless  the  sweet  martyrs ! 
Plung'd  far  over  their  garters ; 
Girls  had  no  exemption, 
Boys  sank  past  redemption  ; 
To  their  manes  horses  stall'd  in  it, 
To  their  ear-tips  mules  sprawl'd  in  it ! 
It  couldn't  be  chain'd  off, 
It  wouldn't  be  drain'd  off; 
It  couldn't  be  tied  up, 
It  wouldn't  be  dried  up ; 
It  couldn't  be  shut  down, 
It  wouldn't  be  cut  down. 
Riders  gladly  abroad  would  have  shipp'd  it, 
Walkers  gladly  at  home  would  have  skipp'd  it. 
Frost  bak'd  it, 
Heatcak'd  it; 
To  batter  wheels  churned  it, 
To  splashes  rains  turned  it, 
Bad  teamsters  gol-durned  it ! 

Each  snow-flake  and  dew-drop,  each  shower  and  flood 
Just  seem'd  to  infuse  it  with  lots  of  fresh  blood, 
Increasing  production, 
Increasing  the  ruction, 
Increasing  the  suction ! 
Ev'ry  flat  had  its  fill  of  it, 
Ev'ry  slope  was  a  hill  of  it, 
Ev'ry  brook  was  a  rill  of  it ; 
Ev'ry  yard  had  three  feet  of  it, 
Ev'ry  road  was  a  sheet  of  it ; 
Ev'ry  farm  had  a  field  of  it, 
Ev'ry  town  had  a  yield  of  it. 
Xo  use  to  glare  at  it, 
No  use  to  swear  at  it ; 
No  use  to  get  mad  about  it, 
No  use  to  feel  sad  about  it ; 
No  use  to  sit  up  all  night  scheming 
Some  intricate  form  of  blaspheming  ; 
No  use  in  upbraiding — 
You  had  to  go  wading, 
Till  wearied  humanity, 
Run  out  of  profanity. 
Found  rest  in  insanity  ; 

Or  winged  its  bright  way — unless  dropp'd  with  a  thud- 
To  the  land  of  gold  pavements  and  no  Oil-Creek  mud  ! 


vni. 


PITHOLE  AND  AROUND  THERE. 

THE  METEORIC  CITY  THAT  DAZZLED  MANKIND — FROM  NOTHING  TO  SIXTEEN-THOU- 
SAND  POPULATION  IN  THREE  MONTHS— FIRST  WELLS  AND  FABULOUS  PRICES — 
NOTED  ORGANIZATIONS — SHAMBURG,  RED-HOT  AND  CASH-UP— "  SPIRITS  "  TRY- 
ING THEIR  HAND — THE  PLEASANTVILLE  FURORE — FACTS  SURPASSING  FICTION 
IN  THE  WILD  SCRAMBLE  FOR  THE  ALMIGHTY  DOLLAR. 


"  A  lively  place  in  days  of  yore,  but  something  ails  it  now." — Wordsworth. 
"  Ah  !  who  shall  lift  that  wand  of  magic  power?" — Longfellow. 
"  Wealth  flow'd  from  wood  and  stream  and  soil, 
The  rock  pourtd  forth  its  amber  oil, 

And,  lo  !  a  magic  city  rose." — Marjorie  Meade. 

"  Pithole  was  the  most  remarkable  town  in  the  oil-regions."—  Edwin  C.  Bell. 
"  It  went  up  like  a  rocket  and  came  down  like  a  stick." — Popular  Phrase. 
"  We  are  such  stuff  as  dreams  are  made  of."— Shakespeare. 


ITHOLE,  "  the  magic  city, "  had  little  in 
its  antecedents  to  betoken  the  meteoric 
rise  and  fall  of  the  most  remarkable  oil- 
town  that  ever  "went  up  like  a  rocket 
and  came  down  like  a  stick."  The 
unpoetic  name  of  Pithole  Creek  was 
applied  to  the  stream  which  flows  through 
Allegheny  township  and  bounds  Corn- 
planter  for  several  miles  on  the  east.  It 
empties  into  the  Allegheny  River  eight 
miles  above  Oil  City  and  was  first  men- 
tioned by  Rev.  Alfred  Brunson,  an  itin- 
erant Methodist  minister,  in  his"  Western 
Pioneer ' '  in  1819.  Upheavals  of  rock  left 
a  series  of  deep  pits  or  chasms  on  the  hills 
near  the  mouth  of  the  stream.  From  the  largest  of  these  holes  a  current  of  warm 
air  repels  leaves  or  pieces  of  paper.  Snow  melts  around  the  cavity,  which  is  of 
unknown  depth,  and  the  air  is  a  mephitic  vapor  or  gas.  A  story  is  told  of  three 
hunters  who,  finding  the  snow  melted  on  a  midwinter  day,  determined  to  investi- 
gate. One  of  them  swore  it  was  an  entrance  to  the  infernal  regions  and  that  he 
intended  to  warm  himself.  He  sat  on  the  edge  of  the  hole,  dangled  his  feet  over 
the  side,  thanked  the  devil  for  the  opportune  heat,  inhaled  the  gas  and  tumbled 
back  insensible.  His  companions  dragged  him  away  and  the  investigation 
ended  summarily.  Seven  miles  up  the  creek,  in  the  northeast  corner  of  Corn- 

157 


9FTHE 

METROPOLITAN  HoTeu, 
PiTH9i_e  Pa. 


158 


SKETCHES  IN    CRUDE- OIL. 


planter,  Rev.  Walter  Holmden  was  a  pioneer  settler.  Choosing  a  tract  of  two- 
hundred  acres,  he  built  a  log-house  on  the  west  bank  of  the  creek,  cleared  a  few 
acres,  struggled  with  poverty  and  died  in  1840.  Mr.  Holmden  was  a  fervent 
Baptist  preacher.  Thomas  Holmden  occupied  the  farm  after  the  good  old  man's 
decease,  with  the  Copelands  and  Blackmers  and  James  Rooker  as  neighbors. 
Developments  had  covered  the  farms  from  the  Drake  well  to  Oil  City.  Opera- 
tors ventured  up  the  ravines,  ascended  the  hills  and  began  to  take  chances  miles 
from  either  side  of  Oil  Creek.  Successful  wells  on  the  Allegheny  River  broad- 
ened opinions  regarding  the  possibilities  of  petroleum.  Nervy  men  invaded  the 
eastern  portion  of  Cornplanter,  picking  up  lands  along  Pithole  Creek  and  its 
tributaries.  I.  N.  Frazer,  fresh  from  his  triumph  on  Cherry  Run  as  joint-owner 
of  the  Reed  well,  desired  fresh  laurels.  He  organized  the  United-States  Oil- 
Company,  leased  part  of  the  Holmden  farm  for  twenty  years  and  started  a  well 


in  the  fall  of  1864.  The  primitive  derrick  was  reared  in  the  woods  below  the 
Holmden  home.  At  six-hundred  feet  the  "sixth  sand  "—generally  called  that 
at  Pithole — was  punctured.  Ten  feet  farther  the  tools  proceeded,  the  drillers 
watching  intently  for  signs  of  oil.  On  January  seventh,  1865,  the  torrent  broke 
loose,  the  well  flowing  six-hundred-and-fifty  barrels  a  day  and  ceasing  finally  on 
November,  tenth.  A  picture  of  the  well,  showing  Frazer  with  his  back  to  the 
tree  beside  his  horse  and  a  group  of  visitors  standing  around,  was  secured  in 
May.  Kilgore  &  Keenan's  Twin  wells,  good  for  eight-hundred  barrels,  were 
finished  on  January  seventeenth  and  nineteenth.  The  unfathomable  mud  and 
disastrous  floods  of  that  memorable  season  retarded  the  hegira  from  other  sec- 
tions, only  to  intensify  the  excitement  when  it  found  vent.  Duncan  &  Prather 
bought  Holmden's  land  for  twenty-five-thousand  dollars  and  divided  the  flats 
and  slopes  into  half-acre  leases.  The  first  of  May  witnessed  a  small  clearing  in 
the  forest,  with  three  oil-wells,  one  drilling-well  and  three  houses  as  its  sole 
evidences  of  human  handiwork. 

Ninety  days  later  the  world  heard  with  unfeigned  surprise  of  a  "city"  of 


PITHOLE  AND  AROUND    THERE.  159 

sixteen-thousand  inhabitants,  possessing  most  of  the  conveniences  and  luxuries 
of  the  largest  and  oldest  communities  !  Capitalists  eager  to  invest  their  green- 
backs thronged  to  the  scene.  Labor  and  produce  commanded  extravagant 
figures,  every  farm  for  miles  was  leased  or  bought  at  fabulous  rates,  money  cir- 
culated like  the  measles  and  for  weeks  the  furore  surpassed  the  frantic  ebulli- 
tions of  Wall  Street  on  Black  Friday  !  New  strikes  perpetually  inflated  the 
mania.  Speculators  wandered  far  and  wide  in  quest  of  the  subterranean  wealth 
that  promised  to  outrival  the  golden  measures  of  California  or  the  silver-lodes 
of  Nevada.  The  value  of  oil-lands  was  reckoned  by  millions.  Small  interests 
in  single  wells  brought  hundreds-of-thousands  of  dollars.  New  York,  Philadel- 
phia, Boston  and  Chicago  measured  purses  in  the  insane  strife  for  territory- 
Hosts  of  adventurers  sought  the  new  Oil-Dorado  and  the  stocks  of  countless 
"petroleum  companies  "  were  scattered  broadcast  over  Europe  and  America. 
An  ambitious  operator  sold  seventeen-sixteenths  in  one  well  and  shares  in  leases 
were  purchased  ravenously.  A  half-acre  lease  on  the  Holmden  farm  realized 
bonuses  of  twenty-four-thousand  dollars  before  a  well  was  drilled  on  the  prop- 
erty and  the  swarm  of  dealers  resembled  the  plague  of  locusts  in  Egypt  in  num- 
ber and  persistence  ! 

Everything  favored  the  growth  of  Pithole.  The  close  of  the  war  had  left  the 
country  flooded  with  paper,  currency  and  multitudes  of  men  thrown  upon  their 
own  resources.  Hundreds  of  these  flocked  to  the  inviting  "city,"  which  pre- 
sented manifold  inducements  to  venturesome  spirits,  keen  shysters,  unscrupulous 
stock-jobbers,  needy  laborers  and  dishonest  tricksters.  The  post-office  speedily 
ranked  third  in  Pennsylvania,  Philadelphia  and  Pittsburg  alone  excelling  it. 
Seven  chain-lightning  clerks  assisted  Postmaster  S.  S.  Hill  to  handle  the  mail. 
Lines  of  men  extending  a  block  would  await  their  turns  for  letters  at  the  general- 
delivery.  It  was  a  roystering  time !  Hotels,  theaters,  saloons,  drinking-dens, 
gambling-hells  and  questionable  resorts  were  counted  by  the  score.  A  fire- 
department  was  organized,  a  daily  paper  established  and  a  mayor  elected. 
Railways  to  Reno  and  Oleopolis  were  nearly  completed  before  "the  beginning  of 
the  end  "  came  with  terrible  swiftness.  In  No- 
vember and  December  the  wells  declined  mate- 
rially. The  laying  of  pipe-lines  to  Miller  Farm 
and  Oleopolis,  through  which  the  oil  was  forced 
to  points  of  shipment  by  steam-pumps,  in  one 
week  drove  fifteen-hundred  teams  to  seek  work 
elsewhere.  Destructive  fires  accelerated  the 
final  catastrophe.  The  graphic  pen  of  Dickens 
would  fail  to  give  an  adequate  idea  of  this  phe- 
nomenal creation,  whose  career  was  a  magnified 
type  of  dozens  of  towns  that  suddenly  arose  and 
as  suddenly  collapsed  in  the  oil-regions  of 
Pennsylvania. 

Pithole  had  many  wells  that  yielded  freely 
for  some  time.     The  Homestead,  on  the  Hyner 
farm,  finished  in  June  of  1865,  proved  a  gusher. 
On  August  first  the  Deshler  started  at  one-hun- 
dred barrels  ;  on  August  second  the  Grant,  at  four-hundred-and-fifty  barrels  ;  on 
August  twenty-eighth  the  Pool,  at  eight-hundred  barrels  ;  on  September  fifth 
the  Ogden,  at  one-hundred  barrels,  and  on  September  fifteenth  Pool  &  Perry's 
No.  47,  at  four-hundred  barrels.    The  Frazer  improved  during  the  spring  to  eight- 


160  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

hundred  barrels,  while  the  Grant  reached  seven-hundred  in  September.  On 
November  twenty-second  the  Eureka  joined  the  chorus  at  five-hundred  barrels. 
The  daily  production  of  the  Holmden  farm  exceeded  five-thousand  barrels  for 
a  limited  period,  with  a  proportionate  yield  of  seven-dollar  crude  from  adjacent 
tracts.  John  A.  Mather,  the  veteran  Titusville  photographer,  discarded  his 
camera  to  become  a  full-fledged  oilman.  He  bored  a  well  that  tinctured  the 
suburban  slope  of  Balltown  a  glowing  madder.  The  frenzy  spread.  J.  W. 
Bonta  and  James  A.  Bates  paid  James  Rooker  two-hundred-and-eighty-thousand 
dollars  for  his  hundred-acre  farm ,  south  of  the  Holmden.  Rooker,  a  hard-work- 
ing tiller  of  the  soil,  lived  in  a  kind  of  rookery  and  earned  a  poor  subsistence  by 
constant  toil.  He  stuck  to  the  money  derived  from  the  sale  of  his  farm,  moved 
west  and  died  at  a  goodly  age.  A  neighbor  refused  eight-hundred-thousand 
dollars  for  his  barren  acres.  "I  don't  keer  ter  hev  my  buckwheat  tramped 
uver,"  he  explained,  "but  you  kin  hev  this  farm  next  winter  fer  a  million!" 
He  kept  the  farm,  reaped  his  crop  and  was  not  disturbed  until  death  compelled 
him  to  lodge  in  a  plot  six  feet  by  two. 

Bonta  &  Bates  did  not  linger  for  ' '  two  blades  of  grass  to  grow  where  one 
grew  before."  Within  two  months  they  disposed  of  ninety  leases  for  four-hun- 
dred-thousand dollars  and  half  the  oil !  They  spent  eighty-thousand  on  the 
Bonta  House,  a  sumptuous  hostlery.  Duncan  &  Prather  leased  building-lots  at 
a  yearly  rental  of  one-hundred  to  one-thousand  dollars.  First,  Second  and 
Holmden  streets  bristled  with  activity.  The  Danforth  House  stood  on  a  lot  sub- 
leased for  fourteen-thousand  dollars  bonus.  Sixty  hotels  could  not  accommo- 
date the  influx  of  guests.  Beds,  sofas  and  chairs  were  luxuries  for  the  few. 
"  First  come,  first  served,  "  was  the  rule.  The  many  had  to  seek  the  shaving- 
pile,  the  hay-cock  or  the  tender  side  of  a  plank.  Some  mingled  promiscuously 
in  "field-beds" — rows  of  "shake-downs"  on  attic  floors.  Besides  the  Bonta 
and  Danforth,  the  United  States,  Chase,  Tremont,  Buckley,  Lincoln,  Sherman, 
St.  James,  American,  Northeast,  Seneca,  Metropolitan,  Pomeroy  and  fifty  hotels 
of  minor  note  flourished.  If  palaces  of  sin,  gorgeous  bar-rooms,  business- 
houses  and  places  of  amusement  abounded,  churches  and  schools  marked  the 
moral  sentiment.  Fire  wiped  out  the  Tremont  and  adjoining  houses  in  February 
of  1866.  Eighty  buildings  went  up  in  smoke  on  May  first  and  June  thirteenth. 
Thirty  wells  and  twenty-thousand  barrels  of  oil  went  the  same  road  in  August. 
The  best  buildings  were  torn  down,  to  bloom  at  Pleasantville  or  Oil  City.  The 
disappearance  of  Pithole  astonished  the  world  no  less  than  its  marvelous  growth. 
The  Danforth  House  sold  for  sixteen  dollars,  to  make  firewood  !  The  railroads 
were  abandoned  and  in  1876  only  six  voters  remained.  A  ruined  tenement,  a 
deserted  church  and  traces  of  streets  alone  survive.  Troy  or  Nineveh  is  not 
more  desolate. 

In  July  of  1865  Duncan  &  Prather  granted  Henry  E.  Picket,  George  J.  Sher- 
man and  Brian  Philpot,  of  Titusville,  a  thirty-day  option  on  the  Holmden  farm 
for  one-million-three-hundred-thousand  dollars.  Mr.  Sherman  arranged  to  sell 
the  property  in  New  York  at  sixteen-hundred-thousand  !  The  wells  already 
down  produced  largely,  seventy  more  were  drilling  and  the  annual  ground  rents 
footed  up  sixty-thousand  dollars.  The  Ketcham  forgeries  tangled  the  funds  of 
the  New-Yorkers  and  negotiations  were  opened  with  H.  H.  Honore,  of  Chicago. 
After  dark  on  the  last  day  of  the  option  Honore  tendered  the  first  payment — 
four-hundred-thousand  dollars.  It  was  declined,  on  the  ground  that  the  busi- 
ness day  expired  at  sundown,  and  litigation  ensued.  A  compromise  resulted  in 
the  transfer  of  the  property  to  Honore.  The  deal  involved  the  largest  sum  ever 


PITHOLE  AND  AROUND    THERE.  161 

paid  in  the  oil-regions  for  a  single  tract  of  land.  The  bubble  burst  so  quickly 
that  the  Chicago  purchaser,  like  Benjamin  Franklin,  "paid  too  much  for  the 
whistle."  Col.  A.  P.  Duncan  commanded  the  Fourth  Cavalry  Company,  the 
first  mustered  in  Venango  county,  every  member  of  which  carried  to  the  war  a 
small  Bible  presented  by  Mrs.  A.  G.  Egbert,  of  Franklin.  Tall,  erect,  of  military 
bearing  and  undoubted  integrity,  he  lived  at  Oil  City  and  died  years  ago. 
Duncan  &  Prather  owned  one  of  the  two  banks  that  handled  car-loads  of  money 
in  the  dizziest  town  that  ever  blasted  radiant  hopes  and  shriveled  portly  pocket- 
books. 

Pithole  was  the  Mecca  of  a  legion  of  operators  whose  history  is  part  and  par- 
cel of  the  oil-development.  Phillips  Brothers,  giants  on  Oil  Creek,  bought  farms 
and  drilled  extensively.  Frederic  Prentice  and  W.  W.  Clark,  who  figured  in 
two-thirds  of  the  largest  transactions  from  Petroleum  Centre  to  Franklin,  held 
a  full  hand.  Frank  W.  Andrews,  John  Satterfield,  J.  R.  Johnson,  J.  B.  Fink, 
A.  J.  Keenan— the  first  burgess -D.  H.  Burtis,  Heman  Janes,  "Pap"  Sheak- 
ley,  L.  H.  Smith  and  hundreds  of  similar  calibre 
were  on  deck.  John  Galloway,  known  in  every 
oil-district  of  Pennsylvania  and  West  Virginia 
as  a  tireless  hustler,  did  not  let  Pithole  slip  past 
unnoticed.  He  has  been  an  operator  in  all  the 
fields  since  his  first  appearance  on  Oil  Creek  in 
the  fall  of  1861.  Sharing  in  the  prosperity  and 
adversity  of  the  oil-regions,  he  has  never  been 
hoodooed  or  bankrupted.  His  word  is  his  bond 
and  his  promise  to  pay  has  always  meant  one- 
hundred  cents  on  the  dollar.  More  largely  in- 
terested in  producing  than  ever,  he  attends  to 
business  at  Pittsburg  and  lives  at  Jamestown, 
happy  in  his  deserved  success,  in  the  love  of  his 
family  and  the  esteem  of  countless  friends.  Mr. 
Galloway's  pedestrian  feats  would  have  crowned 
him  with  olive-wreaths  at  the  Olympic  game's. 

Deerfoot  could  hardly  have  kept  up  with  him  on  a  twenty-mile  tramp  to  see  an 
important  well  or  hit  a  farmer  for  a  lease  before  breakfast.  He's  a  good  one ! 

The  Swordsman's  Club  attained  the  highest  reputation  as  a  social  organiza- 
tion. One  night  in  1866,  when  Pithole  was  at  the  zenith  of  its  fame,  John  Sat- 
terfield, Seth  Crittenden,  Alfred  W.  Smiley,  John  McDonald,  George  Burchill, 
George  Gilmore,  Pard  B.  Smith,  L.  H.  Smith,  W.  H.  Longwell  and  other  con- 
genial gentlemen  met  for  an  evening's  enjoyment.  The  conversation  turned  upon 
clubs.  Smiley  jumped  to  his  feet  and  moved  that  "  we  organize  a  club."  All 
assented  heartily  and  the  Swordman's  Club  was  organized  there  and  then,  with 
Pard  B.  Smith  as  president  and  George  Burchill  as  secretary.  Elegant  rooms 
were  fitted  up,  the  famous  motto  of  "  R.  C.  T."  was  adopted  and  the  club  gave 
a  series  of  most  elaborate  "  promenade  concerts  and  balls  "  in  1866-7.  Invita- 
tions to  these  brilliant  affairs  were  courted  by  the  best  people  of  Oildom.  The 
club  dissolved  in  1868.  Its  membership  included  four  congressmen,  two  ex- 
governors  wore  its  badge  and  scores  of  men  conspicuous  in  the  state  and  nation 
had  the  honor  of  belonging  to  the  Swordman's.  At  regular  meetings  ' '  the  feast 
of  reason  and  the  flow  of  soul  "  blended  merrily  with  the  flowing  bowl.  Sallies 
of  bright  wit,  spontaneous  and  never  hanging  fire,  were  promptly  on  schedule 
time.  Good  fellowship  prevailed  and  C.  C.  Leonard  immortalized  the  club  in 


1 62 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


his  side-splitting  "  History  of  Pithole."  Verily  the  years  slip  by.  Long  ago  the 
ephemeral  town  went  back  to  its  original  pasture,  long  ago  the  facetious  his- 
torian went  back  to  dust,  long  ago  many  a  good  clubman's  sword  turned  into 
rust.  Pard  B.  Smith  runs  a  livery  in  Cleveland,  Longwell  is  in  Oil  City,  Smiley — 
— he  represented  Clarion  county  twice  in  the  Legislature — manages  the  pipe-line 
at  Foxburg,  L.  H.  Smith  is  in  New  York  and  others  are  scattered  or  dead.  On 
November  twenty-first,  1890,  the  "Pioneers  of  Pithole" — among  them  a  num- 
ber of  Swordsmen — had  a  reunion  and  banquet  at  the  Hotel  Brunswick,  Titus- 
ville.  These  stanzas,  composed  and  sung  by  President  Smith  and  "Alf" 
Smiley,  were  vociferously  cheered  : 

"  'Twas  side  by  side,  as  Swordsmen  true, 

In  Pithole  long  ago, 
We  met  the  boys  on  common  ground 

And  gave  them  all  a  show. 
In  social  as  in  business  ways 

Our  honor  was  our  law, 
And  when  a  brother  lost  his  grip 

He  on  the  boys  could  draw. 

CHORUS  :    "  We're  the  boys,  the  same  old  boys, 

Who  were  there  in  sixty-five  ; 
If  any  Swordsman  comes  our  way 
He'll  find  us  still  alive. 

"  What  if  grim  age  creeps  on  apace, 

Our  souls  will  ne'er  grow  old  ; 
We  will,  as  in  the  Pithole  days, 

Stand  true  as  Swordsmen  bold. 
In  those  old  days  we  had  our  fun, 

But  stood  for  honor  true  ; 
Here,  warmly  clasping  hand-to-hand, 

Our  friendship  we  renew.'' 

Scarcely  less  noted  was  the  organization  heralded  far  and  wide  as  "Pit- 
hole's  Forty  Thieves."  Well-superintendents,  controlling  the  interests  of  out- 
side companies,  were  important  personages. 
Distant  stockholders,  unable  to  understand  the 
difficulties  and  uncertainties  attending  develop- 
ments, blamed  the  superintendents  for  the  lack 
of  dividends.  No  class  of  men  in  the  country 
discharged  their  duties  more  faithfully,  yet 
cranky  investors  in  wildcat  stocks  termed  them 
"slick  rascals,"  "plunderers"  and  "robbers." 
Some  joker  suggested  that  once  a  band  of  Ara- 
bian Knights— fellows  who  stole  everything — 
associated  as  "The  Forty  Thieves  "  and  that 
the  libeled  superintendents  ought  to  organize  a 
club.  The  idea  captured  the  town  and  ' '  Pit- 
hole's  Forty  Thieves' '  became  at  once  a  tangible 
reality.  Merchants,  producers,  capitalists  and 
business-men  hastened  to  enroll  themselves  as 
members.  Hon.  James  Sheakley,  of  Mercer, 
was  elected  president.  Social  meetings  were  held  regularly  and  guying  green- 
horns, who  supposed  stealing  to  be  the  object  of  the  organization,  was  a  favorite 
pastime.  The  practical  pranks  of  the  "Forty"  were  laughed  at  and  relished 
in  the  whole  region.  Nine-tenths  of  the  members  were  young  men,  honorable 


GOVERNOR    SHEAKLEY. 


PITH  OLE   AND   AROUND    THERE.  163 

in  every  relation  of  life,  to  whom  the  organization  was  a  genuine  joke.  They 
enjoyed  its  notoriety  and  delighted  to  gull  innocents  who  imagined  they  would 
purloin  engines,  derricks,  drilling-tools,  saw-mills  and  oil-tanks.  Ten  years 
after  the  band  disbanded  its  president  served  in  Congress  and  was  a  leading 
debater  on  the  Hayes-Tilden  muddle.  "Pap"  Sheakley— as  the  boys  affec- 
tionately called  him— was  the  embodiment  of  integrity,  kindliness  and  hospi- 
tality. He  operated  in  the  Butler  field  and  lived  at  Greenville.  Bereft  of  his 
devoted  wife  and  lovely  daughters  by  "the  fell  sergeant  death,"  he  sold  his 
desolated  home  and  accepted  from  President  Cleveland  the  governorship  of 
Uncle  Sam's  remotest  Territory.  His  administration  was  so  satisfactory  that 
President  Harrison  reappointed  him.  There  is  no  squarer,  truer,  nobler  man 
in  the  public  service  to-day  than  James  Sheakley,  Governor  of  Alaska. 

Rev.  S.  D.  Steadman,  the  first  pastor  at  Pithole,  a  zealous  Methodist— was 
universally  respected  for  earnestness  and  piety.  The  "Forty  Thieves"  sent 
him  one-hundred-and-fifty  dollars  at  Christmas  of  1866,  with  a  letter  commend- 
ing his  moral  teachings,  his  courtesy  and  charity.  Another  minister  inquired 
of  a  Swordsman  what  the  letters  of  the  club's  motto — "R.  C.  T. " — signified. 
"  Religious  Counsels  Treasured  "  was  the  ready 
response.  This  raised  the  club  immensely  in 
the  divine's  estimation  and  led  to  a  sermon  in 
which  he  extolled  the  jolly  organization  !  He 
"  took  a  tumble  "  when  a  deacon  smilingly  in- 
formed him  that  the  letters — a  fake  proposed  in 
sport — symbolized  "  Rum,  Cards.  Tobacco !" 

Two  miles  east  of  Miller-Farm  station  and 
four  north-west  of  Pithole,  on  the  eighty-acre 
tract  of  Oliver  Stowell,  the  Cherry-Run  Petro- 
leum-Company finished  a  well  in  February  of 
1866.  It  was  eight-hundred  feet  deep,  drilled 
through  the  sixth  sand  and  pumped  one-hun- 
dred barrels  a  day.  The  company  operated  sys- 
tematically, using  heavy  tools,  tall  derricks  and 
large  casing.  It  was  managed  by  Dr.  G.  Sham- 

-         ,  \  ....  DR.    G.    SHAMBURG. 

burg,   a    man  of   character  and    ability,    who 

studied  the  strata  carefully  and  gathered  much  valuable  data.  The  second  well 
equalled  No.  i  in  productiveness  and  longevity,  both  lasting  for  years.  J.  B. 
Fink's,  a  July  posy  of  two-hundred  barrels,  was  the  third.  The  grand  rush 
began  in  December,  1867,  the  Fee  and  Jack  Brown  wells,  on  the  Atkinson  farm, 
flowing  four-hundred  barrels  apiece.  A  lively  town,  eligibly  located  in  a  depres- 
sion of  the  table-lands,  was  properly  named  Shamburg,  as  a  compliment  to  the 
genial  doctor.  The  Tallman,  Goss,  Atkinson  and  Stowell  farms  whooped  up 
the  production  to  three-thousand  barrels.  Frank  W.  and  W.  C.  Andrews, 
Lyman  and  Milton  Stewart,  John  W.  Irvin  and  F.  L.  Backus  had  bought  John 
R.  Tallman's  one-hundred  acres  in  1865.  Their  first  well  began  producing  in 
September,  1867,  and  in  1868  they  sold  two-hundred-thousand  barrels  of  oil 
for  nearly  eight-hundred-thousand  dollars  !  A.  H.  Bronson — bright,  alert,  keen 
in  business  and  popular  in  society — paid  twenty-five-thousand  for  the  Charles 
Clark  farm,  a  mile  north-east.  His  first  well — three-hundred  barrels — paid  for 
the  property  and  itself  in  sixty  days.  Operations  in  the  Shamburg  pool  were 
almost  invariably  profitable  and  handsome  fortunes  were  realized.  A  peculiarity 
was  the  presence  of  green  and  black  oils,  a  line  on  the  eastern  part  of  the  Cherry 


164  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL, 

Run  Company's  land  defining  them  sharply.  Their  gravity  and  general  prop- 
erties were  identical  and  the  black  color  was  attributed  to  oxide  of  iron  in  the 
rock.  Dr.  Shamburg  died  at  Titusville  and  the  town  he  founded  is  taking  a 
perpetual  vacation. 

Carl  Wageforth,  a  genius  well  known  in  early  years  as  one  of  the  owners  of 
the  Story  farm,  started  a  "town"  in  the  woods  two  miles  above  Shamburg. 
The  "town  "  collapsed,  Wageforth  clung  to  his  store  a  season  and  next  turned 
up  in  Texas  as  the  founder  of  a  German  colony.  He  secured  a  claim  in  the 
Lone  Star  State  about  thrice  the  size  of  Rhode  Island,  settled  it  with  thrifty 
immigrants  from  the  "Faderland"  and  bagged  a  bushel  of  ducats.  He  made 
and  lost  fortunes  in  oil  and  could  no  more  be  kept  from  breaking  out  occasion- 
ally than  measles  or  small-pox. 

East  of  Petroleum  Centre  three  miles,  on  the  bank  of  a  pellucid  stream, 
John  E.  McLaughlin  drilled  a  well  in  1868  that  flowed  fourteen-hundred  barrels. 
The  sand  was  coarse,  the  oil  dark  and  the  magnitude  of  the  strike  a  surprise 
equal  to  the  answer  of  the  dying  sinner  who,  asked  by  the  minister  if  he  wasn't 
afraid  to  meet  an  angry  God,  unexpectedly  replied  :  "Not  a  bit ;  it's  the  other 
chap  I'm  afraid  of!"  Excepting  the  half-dozen  mastodons  on  Oil  Creek,  the 
McLaughlin  was  the  biggest  well  in  the  business  up  to  that  date.  Wide-awake 
operators  struck  a  bee-line  for  leases.  A  town  was  floated  in  two  weeks,  a 
Pithole  grocer  erecting  the  first  building  and  labeling  the  place  "Cash-Up "  as 
a  gentle  hint  to  patrons  not  to  let  their  accounts  get  musty  with  age.  The 
name  fitted  the  town,  which  a  twelvemonth  sufficed  to  sponge  off  the  slate. 
Small  wells  and  dry-holes  ruled  the  roost,  even  those  nudging  "the  big  'un" 
missing  the  pay-streak.  The  McLaughlin— a  decided  freak — declined  gradually 
and  pumped  seven  years,  having  the  reservoir  all  to  itself.  Located  ten  rods 
away  in  any  direction,  it  would  have  been  a  duster  and  Cash-Up  would  not  have 
existed !  A  hundred  surrounding  it  did  not  cash-up  the  outlay  for  land  and 
drilling. 

North  of  Pithole  the  tide  crossed  into  Allegheny  township.  Balltown,  a 
meadow  on  C.  M.  Ball's  farm  in  July,  1865,  at  the  end  of  the  year  paraded 
stores,  hotels,  a  hundred  dwellings  and  a  thousand  people.  Fires  in  1866 
scorched  it  and  waning  production  did  the  rest.  Dawson  Centre,  on  the  Saw- 
yer tract,  budded,  frosted  and  perished.  The  Morey  House,  on  the  Copeland 
farm,  was  the  oasis  in  the  desert,  serving  meals  that  tickled  the  midriff  and 
might  cope  with  Delmonico's.  Farms  on  Little  Pithole  Creek  were  riddled 
without  swelling  the  yield  of  crude  immoderately.  Where  are  those  oil-wells 
now?  Echo  murmurs  "where?"  In  all  that  section  of  Cornplanter  and  Alle- 
gheny townships  a  derrick,  an  engine-house  or  a  tank  would  be  a  novelty  of 
the  rarest  breed. 

Attracted  by  the  quality  of  the  soil  and  the  beauty  of  the  location— six-hun- 
dred feet  above  the  level  of  Oil  Creek  and  abundantly  watered — in  1820  Abra- 
ham Lovell  forsook  his  New  York  farm  to  settle  in  Allegheny  township,  six 
miles  east  by  south  of  Titusville.  Aaron  Benedict  and  Austin  Merrick  came 
in  1821.  John  Brown,  the  first  merchant,  opened  a  store  in  1833.  A  pottery, 
tannery,  ashery,  store  and  shops  formed  the  nucleus  of  a  village,  organized  in 
1850  as  the  borough  of  Pleasantville.  Three  wells  on  the  outskirts  of  town, 
bored  in  1865-6,  produced  a  trifling  amount  of  oil.  Late  in  the  fall  of  1867 
Abram  James,  an  ardent  spiritualist,  was  driving  from  Pithole  to  Titusville  with 
three  friends.  A  mile  south  of  Pleasantville  his  ' '  spirit-guide ' '  assumed  control 
of  Mr.  James  and  humped  him  over  the  fence  into  a  field  on  the  William  Porter 


PITHOLE  AND  AROUND    THERE.  165 

farm.  Powerless  to  resist,  the  subject  was  hurried  to  the  northern  end  of  the 
field,  contorted  violently,  jerked  through  a  species  of  "  couchee-couchee  dance" 
and  pitched  to  the  ground  !  He  marked  the  spot  with  his  finger,  thrust  a  penny 
into  the  dirt  and  fell  back  pale  and  rigid.  Restored  to  consciousness,  he  told 
his  astonished  companions  it  had  been  revealed  to  him  that  streams  of  oil  lay 
beneath  and  extended  several  miles  in  a  certain  direction.  Putting  no  faith  in 
"spirits  "  not  amenable  to  flasks,  they  listened  incredulously  and  resumed  their 
journey.  James  negotiated  a  lease,  borrowed  money— the  "spirit-guide" 
neglected  to  furnish  cash — and  planted  a  derrick  where  he  had  planted  the 
penny.  On  February  twelfth,  1868,  at  eight-hundred-and-fifty  deep,  the  Har- 
monial  Well  No.  i  pumped  one-hundred-and-thirty  barrels  ! 

The  usual  hurly-burly  followed.  People  who  voted  the  James  adventure  a 
fish-story  writhed  and  twisted  to  drill  near  the  spirited  Harmonial.  New 
strikes  increased  the  hubbub  and  established  the  sure  quality  of  the  territory. 
Scores  of  wells  were  sunk  on  the  Porter,  Brown,  Tyrell,  Beebe,  Dunham  and 
other  farms  for  miles.  Prices  of  supplies  advanced  and  machine-shops  in  the 
oil-regions  ran  night  and  day  to  meet  orders.  Land  sold  at  five-hundred  to 
five-thousand  dollars  an  acre,  often  changing  hands  three  or  four  times  a  day. 
Interests  in  wells  going  down  found  willing  purchasers.  Strangers  crowded 
Pleasantville,  which  trebled  its  population  and  buildings  during  the  year.  It 
was  a  second  edition  of  Pithole,  mildly  subdued  and  divested  of  frothy  sensa- 
tionalism. If  gigantic  gushers  did  not  dazzle,  dry-holes  did  not  discourage. 
If  nobody  cleared  a  million  dollars  at  a  clip,  nobody  cleared  out  to  avoid  cred- 
itors. Nobody  had  to  loaf  and  trust  to  Providence  for  daily  bread.  Providence 
wasn't  running  a  bakery  for  the  benefit  of  idlers  and  work  was  plentiful  at 
Pleasantville.  The  production  reached  three-thousand  barrels  in  the  summer 
of  1868,  dropping  to  fifteen-hundred  in  1870.  Three  banks  prospered  and  im- 
posing brick-blocks  succeeded  unsubstantial  frames.  Fresh  pastures  invited 
the  floating  mass  to  Clarion,  Armstrong  and  Butler.  Small  wells  were  aban- 
doned, machinery  was  shipped  southward  and  the  pretty  village  moved  back- 
ward gracefully.  Pleasantville  had  "marched  up  the  hill  and  then  marched 
down  again." 

Abram  James,  a  man  of  fine  intellect,  nervous  temperament  and  lofty  prin- 
ciple, lived  at  Pleasantville  a  year.  He  located  a  dozen  paying  wells  in  other 
sections,  under  the  influence  of  his  "spirit-guide."  The  Harmonial  was  his 
greatest  hit,  bringing  him  wealth  and  distinction.  His  worst  break — a  dry- 
hole  on  the  Clarion  river  eighteen-hundred  feet  deep — cost  him  six-thousand 
dollars  in  1874.  None  questioned  his  absolute  sincerity,  although  many  rejected 
his  theories  of  the  supernatural.  Whether  he  is  still  in  the  flesh  or  has  become 
a  spirit  has  not  been  manifested  to  his  old  friends  in  Oildom. 

"  Spirits  "  inspired  four  good  wells  at  Pithole.  One  dry  hole,  a  mile  south- 
east of  town,  seriously  depressed  stock  in  their  skill  as  "oil-smellers."  An 
enthusiastic  disciple  of  the  Fox  sisters,  assured  of  "a  big  well,"  drilled  two- 
hundred  feet  below  the  sixth  sand  in  search  of  oil-bearing  rock.  He  drilled 
himself  into  debt  and  Sheriff  C.  S.  Mark — six  feet  high  and  correspondingly 
broad — whom  nobody  could  mistake  for  an  ethereal  being,  sold  the  outfit  at 
junk-prices. 

Red-Hot,  in  the  palmy  era  of  the  Shamburg  excitement  a  place  of  much 
sultriness,  is  cold  enough  to  chill  any  stray  visitor  who  knew  the  mushroom  at 
its  warmest  stage.  Windsor  Brothers,  of  Oil  City — they  built  the  Windsor 
Block— drilled  a  well  in  1869  that  flowed  three-hundred-and-fifty  barrels.  Others 


1 66  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

followed  rapidly,  people  flocked  to  the  newest  centre  of  attraction  and  a  typical 
oil-town  strutted  to  the  front.  The  territory  lacked  the  staying  quality,  the 
Butler  region  was  about  to  dawn  and  1871  saw  Red-Hot  reduced  to  three 
houses,  a  half-dozen  light  wells  and  a  muddy  road.  Lightning-rod  pedlars, 


OWN,    IN    1870. 


book-agents  and  medical  fakirs  no  longer  disturb  its  calm  serenity.      Not  a 
scrap  of  the  tropical  town  has  been  visible  for  two  decades. 

Tip-Top  filled  a  short  engagement.  Operations  around  Shamburg  and 
Pleasantville  directed  attention  to  the  Captain  Lyle  and  neighboring  farms, 
midway  between  these  points.  "Ned"  Pitcher's  well,  drilled  in  1866  on  the 
Snedaker  farm,  east  of  Lyle,  had  started  at  eighty  barrels  and  pumped  twenty 
for  two  years.  Pithole  was  booming  and  nobody  thought  of  Ned's  pitcher 
until  1868.  Many  of  the  wells  produced  fairly,  but  the  territory  soon  depreciated 
and  the  elevated  town— aptly  named  by  a  poet  with  an  eye  to  the  eternal  fitness 
of  things — lost  its  hold  and  glided  down  to  nothingness.  The  hundred-eyed 
Argus  could  not  find  a  sliver  that  would  prick  a  thumb  or  tip  a  top. 

Eight  miles  north-east  of  Titusville,  where  Godfrey  Hill  drilled  a  dry-hole 
in  1860  and  two  companies  drilled  six  later,  the  Colorado  district  finally  re- 
warded gritty  operators.  Enterprise  was  benefited  by  small  wells  in  the  vicin- 
ity. Down  Pithole  Creek  to  its  junction  with  the  Allegheny  the  country  was 
punctured.  Oleopolis  straggled  over  the  slope  on  the  river's  bank,  a  pipe-line, 
a  railroad  to  Pithole  and  minor  wells  contributing  to  its  support.  The  first  well 
tackled  a  vein  of  natural  gas,  which  caught  fire  and  consumed  the  rig.  The 
driller  was  alone,  the  owner  of  the  well  having  gone  into  the  shanty.  In  a 
twinkling  flames  enveloped  the  astonished  knight  of  the  temper-screw,  who 
leaped  from  the  derrick,  clothes  blazing  and  hair  singed  off,  and  headed  for  the 
water.  "Boss,"  he  roared  in  his  flight,  "jump  into  the  river  and  say  your 
prayers  quick  !  I've  bu'sted  the  bung  and  hell's  running  out !" 

The  Pithole  bubble  was  blown  at  an  opportune  moment  to  catch  suckers. 
Hundreds  of  oil-companies  had  come  into  existence  in  1864,  hungry  for  territory 
and  grasping  at  anything  within  rifle-shot  of  an  actual  or  prospective  "  spouter." 
The  speculative  tide  flowed  and  ebbed  as  never  hefore  in  any  age  or  nation. 
Volumes  could  be  written  of  amazing  transitions  of  fortune.  Scores  landed  at 
Pithole  penniless  and  departed  in  a  few  months  "well  heeled."  Others  came 
with  "  hatfuls  of  money  "  and  went  away  empty-handed.  Thousands  of  stock- 
holders were  bitten  as  badly  as  the  sailor  whom  the  shark  nipped  off  by  the 
waist-band.  It  was  rather  refreshing  in  its  way  for  "country  Reubens  "  to  do 
up  Wall-street  sharpers  at  their  own  game.  Shrewd  Bostonians,  New-Yorkers 
and  Philadelphians,  magnates  in  business  and  finance,  were  snared  as  readily 


PITHOLE  AND  AROUND    THERE.  167 

as  hayseeds  who  buy  green-goods  and  gold-bricks.  There  were  no  flies  on  the 
smooth,  glib  Oily  Gammon  whose  mouth  yielded  more  lubricating  oil  than  the 
biggest  well  on  French  Creek.  His  favorite  prey  was  a  pilgrim  with  a  bursting 
wallet  or  the  agent  of  an  eastern  petroleum-company.  A  well  pouring  forth 
three,  six,  eight,  ten,  twelve  or  fifteen-hundred  barrels  of  five-dollar  crude  every 
twenty-four  hours  was  a  spectacle  to  fire  the  blood  and  turn  the  brain  of  the 
most  sluggish  beholder.  "  Such  a  well,"  he  might  calculate,  "would  make  me 
a  millionaire  in  one  year  and  a  Croesus  in  ten."  The  wariest  trout  would  nibble 
at  bait  so  tempting.  The  schemer  with  property  to  sell  had  "  the  very  thing  he 
wanted"  and  would  "let  him  in  on  the  ground-floor."  He  met  men  who, 
driving  mules  or  jigging  tools  six  months  ago,  were  "oil-princes "  now.  Here 
lay  a  tract,  "the  softest  snap  on  top  of  the  earth,"  only  a  mile  from  the  Great 
Geyser,  with  a  well  "just  in  the  sand  and  a  splendid  show."  He  could  have  it 
at  a  bargain-counter  sacrifice — one-hundred-thousand  dollars  and  half  the  oil. 
The  engine  had  given  out  and  the  owner  was  about  to  order  a  new  one  when 
called  home  by  the  sudden  death  of  his  mother-in-law.  Settling  the  old  lady's 
estate  required  his  entire  attention,  therefore  he  would  consent  to  sell  his  oil- 
interests  "dirt-cheap"  to  a  responsible  buyer  who  would  push  developments. 
The  price  ought  to  be  two  or  three  times  the  sum  asked,  but  the  royalty  from 
the  big  wells  sure  to  be  struck  would  ultimately  even  up  matters.  The  tale  was 
plausible  and  the  visitor  would  "  look  at  the  property."  He  saw  real  sand  on 
the  derrick-floor  and  everything  besmeared  with  grease.  The  presence  of  oil 
was  unmistakable.  Drilling  ten  feet  into  the  rich  rock  would  certainly  tap  the 
jugular  and— glorious  thought !— perhaps  outdo  the  Great  Geyser  itself.  He 
closed  the  deal,  telegraphed  for  an  engine — he  was  dying  to  see  that  stream  of 
oil  climbing  skywards — and  chuckled  gleefully.  The  keen  edge  of  his  delight 
might  have  been  dulled  had  he  known  that  the  well  was  through,  not  merely  to, 
the  sand  and  absolutely  guiltless  of  the  taint  of  oil !  He  did  not  suspect  that 
barrels  of  crude  and  buckets  of  sand  from  other  wells  had  been  dumped  into 
the  hole  at  night,  that  the  engine  had  been  disabled  purposely  and  that  another 
innocent  was  soon  to  cut  his  wisdom-teeth  !  He  found  out  when  the  well 
"came  in  dry"  that  Justice  Dogberry  was  not  a  greater  ass  and  that  the  fool- 
killer's  snickersnee  was  yearning  for  him.  Possibly  he  might  by  persistent 
drilling  find  paying  wells  and  get  back  part  of  his  money,  but  nine  times  out  of 
ten  the  investment  was  a  total  loss  and  the  disgusted  victim  quit  the  scene  with 
a  new  interpretation  of  the  scriptural  declaration  :  "I  was  a  stranger  and  ye 
took  me  in." 

The  methods  of  "turning  an  honest  penny"  varied  to  fit  the  case.  To 
"doctor"  a  well  by  dosing  it  with  a  load  of  oil  was  tame  and  commonplace. 
In  three  instances  wells  sold  at  fancy  prices  were  connected  by  underground 
pipes  with  tanks  of  oil  at  a  distance.  When  the  parties  arrived  to  "time  the 
well  "  the  secret  pipe  was  opened.  The  oil  ran  into  the  tubing  and  pumped  as 
though  coming  direct  from  the  sand !  The  deception  was  as  perfect  as  the 
oleomargarine  the  Pennsylvania  State  Board  of  Agriculture  pronounced  "dairy 
butter  of  superior  quality!"  "Seeing  is  believing"  and  there  was  the  oil. 
They  had  seen  it  pumping  a  steady  stream  into  the  tank,  timed  it,  gauged  it, 
smelled  it.  The  demonstration  was  complete  and  the  cash  would  be  forked 
over,  a  twenty-barrel  well  bringing  a  hundred-barrel  price !  A  smart  widow 
near  Pithole  sold  her  farm  at  treble  its  value  because  of  "  surface  indications  " 
she  created  by  emptying  a  barrel  of  oil  into  a  spring.  The  farm  proved  good 
territory,  much  to  the  chagrin  of  the  widow,  who  roundly  abused  the  purchasers 
12 


168  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

for  "cheatin'  a  poor  lone  woman  !"  Selling  stock  in  companies  that  held 
lands,  or  interests  in  wells  to  be  drilled  "near  big  gushers" — they  might  be 
eight  or  ten  miles  off — was  not  infrequent.  On  the  other  hand,  a  very  slight 
risk  often  brought  an  immense  return.  Parties  would  pay  five-hundred  dollars 
for  the  refusal  of  a  tract  of  land  and  arrange  with  other  parties  to  sink  a  well 
fora  small  lease  on  the  property.  If  the  well  succeeded,  one  acre  would  pay 
the  cost  of  the  entire  farm  ;  if  it  failed,  the  holders  of  the  option  forfeited  the 
trifle  that  secured  it  and  threw  up  the  contract.  It  was  risking  five-hundred 
dollars  on  the  chance,  not  always  very  remote,  of  gaining  a  half-million. 

Sometimes  the  craze  to  invest  bordered  upon  the  ludicrous.  Sixteenths 
and  fractions  of  sixteenths  in  producing,  non-producing,  drilling,  undrilled  and 
never-to-be-drilled  wells  "went  like  hot  cakes"  at  two  to  twenty-thousand 
dollars.  A  newcomer,  in  his  haste  to  "tie  onto  something,"  shelled  out  one- 
thousand  dollars  for  a  share  in  a  gusher  that  netted  him  two  quarts  of  oil  a  day  ! 
Another  cheerfully  paid  fifteen-thousand  for  the  sixteenth  of  a  flowing  well 
which  discounted  the  Irishman's  flea — "you  put  your  finger  on  the  varmint  and 
he  wasn't  there  " — by  balking  that  night  and  declining  ever  to  start  again  !  At 
a  fire  in  1866  water  from  a  spring,  dashed  on  the  blaze,  added  fuel  to  the  flames. 
An  examination  showed  that  oil  was  filling  the  spring  and  water-wells  in  the 
neighborhood.  From  the  well  in  Mrs.  Reichart's  yard  the  wooden  pump 
brought  fifty  barrels  of  pure  oil.  L.  L.  Hill's  well  and  holes  dug  eight  or  ten 
feet  had  the  same  complaint.  Excitement  blew  off  at  the  top  gauge.  The 
Record  devoted  columns  to  the  new  departure.  Was  the  oil  so  impatient  to 
enrich  Pitholians  that,  refusing  to  wait  for  the  drill  to  provide  an  outlet,  it  burst 
through  the  rocks  in  its  eagerness  to  boom  the  district  ?  Patches  of  ground 
the  size  of  a  quilt  sold  for  two,  three  or  four-hundred  dollars  and  rows  of  pits 
resembling  open  graves  decorated  the  slope.  In  a  week  a  digger  discovered 
that  a  break  in  the  pipe-line  supplied  the  oil.  The  leak  was  repaired,  the  pits 
dried  up,  the  water-wells  resumed  their  normal  condition  and  the  fiasco  ended 
ignominiously.  It  was  a  modern  version  of  the  mountain  that  set  the  country 
b^  the  ears  to  bring  forth  a  mouse. 

In  the  swish  and  swirl  of  Pithole  teamsters — a  man  with  two  stout  horses 
could  earn  twenty  dollars  a  day  clear — drillers  and  pumpers  played  no  mean 
part.  They  received  high  wages  and  spent  money  freely.  Variety-shows, 
music-halls — with  "pretty  waiter-girls  " — dance-houses,  saloons,  gambling-hells 
and  dens  of  vice  afforded  unlimited  opportunities  to  squander  cash  and  decency 
and  self-respect.  Many  a  clever  youth,  flushed  with  the  idea  of  "sowing  his 
wild  oats,"  sacrificed  health  and  character  on  the  altars  of  Bacchus  and  Venus. 
Many  a  comely  maiden,  yielding  to  the  wiles  of  the  betrayer,  rounded  up  in  the 
brothel  and  the  potter's  field.  Many  a  pious  mother,  weeping  for  the  wayward 
prodigal  who  was  draining  her  life-blood,  had  reason  to  inquire  :  "  Oh,  where 
is  my  boy  to-night  ?"  Many  a  husband,  forgetting  the  trusting  wife  and  children 
at  home,  wandered  from  the  straight  path  and  tasted  the  forbidden  fruit.  Many 
a  promising  life  was  blighted,  many  a  hopeful  career  blasted,  many  a  reputation 
smirched  and  many  a  fond  heart  broken  by  the  pitfalls  and  temptations  of  Pit- 
hole.  Dollars  were  not  the  only  stakes  in  the  exciting  game  of  life — good  names, 
family  ties,  bright  prospects,  domestic  happiness  and  human  souls  were  often 
risked  and  often  lost.  "  The  half  has  never  been  told." 

Mud  was  responsible  for  the  funniest  -to  the  spectators — mishap  that  ever 
convulsed  a  Pithole  audience.  A  group  of  us  stood  in  front  of  the  Danforth 
House  at  the  height  of  the  miry  season.  Thin  mud  overflowed  the  plank- 


PITHOLE  AND  AROUND    THERE. 


169 


INVOLUNTARY  MUD-BATH. 


crossing  and  a  grocer  laid  short  pieces  of  scantling  two  or  three  feet  apart  for 

pedestrians  to  step  on.     A  flashy  sport,  attired  in  a  swell  suit  and  a  shiny 

beaver,  was  the  first  to  take  advantage  of  the  improvised  passage.     Half-way 

across  the  scantling  to  which  he  was  stepping  moved  ahead  of  his  foot.     In 

trying  to  recover  his  balance  the  sport  careened  to  one  side,  his  hat  flew  off  and 

he  landed  plump  on  his  back,  in  mud  and 

water  three  feet  deep  !     He  disappeared 

beneath    the  surface    as  completely  as 

though   dropped  into  the  sea,  his  head 

emerging  a  moment  later.      Blinded, 

sputtering  and  gasping  for  breath,  he  was 

a  sight  for  the  gods  and  little  fishes ! 

Mouth,  eyes,  nose  and  ears  were  choked 

with  the  dreadful  ooze.     Two  men  went 

to  his  assistance,  led  him  to  the  rear  of 

the  hotel  and  turned  the  hose  on  him. 

His  clothes  were  ruined,  his  gold  watch 

was  never  recovered  and  for  weeks  small 

boys  would  howl :    "  His  name  is  Mud !" 

John  Galloway,  on  one  of  his  rambles 
for  territory,  ate  dinner  at  the  humble 
cabin  of  a  poor  settler.  A  fowl,  tough, 
aged  and  peculiar,  was  the  principal  dish. 
In  two  weeks  the  tourist  was  that  way 
again.  A  boy  of  four  summers  played 
at  the  door,  close  to  which  the  visitor  sat  down.  A  brood  of  small  chickens 
approached  the  entrance.  "  Poo',  ittey  sings,"  lisped  the  child,  "  oo  mus'  yun 
away;  here's  'e  yasty  man  'at  eated  up  oos  mammy."  The  good  woman  of 
the  shanty  had  stewed  the  clucking-hen  to  feed  the  unexpected  guest. 

A  maiden  of  uncertain  age  owned  a  farm  which  various  operators  vainly 
tried  to  lease.  Hoping  to  steal  a  march  on  the  others,  one  smooth  talker  called 
the  second  time.  "I  have  come,  Miss  Blank,"  he  began,  "to  make  you  an 
offer."  He  didn't  get  a  chance  to  add  "  for  your  land."  The  old  girl,  not  a 
gosling  who  would  let  a  prize  slip,  jumped  from  her  chair,  clasped  him  about 
the  neck  and  exclaimed  :  "Oh  !  Mr.  Blank,  this  is  so  sudden,  but  I'm  yours  !" 
The  astounded  oilman  shook  her  off  at  last  and  explained  that  he  already  had  a 
wife  and  five  children  and  wanted  the  Farm  only.  The  clinging  vine  wept  and 
stormed,  threatened  a  breach-of-promise  suit  and  loaded  her  dead  father's 
blunderbuss  to  be  prepared  for  the  next  intruder. 

Col.  Gardner,  "a  big  man  any  way  you  take  ham,"  was  Chief-of- Police  at 
Pithole.  He  has  operated  at  Bradford  and  Warren,  toyed  with  politics  and 
military  affairs  and  won  the  regard  of  troops  of  friends.  Charles  H.  Duncan, 
of  Oil  City— his  youthful  appearance  suggests  Ponce  de  Leon's  spring— served  in 
the  borough-council,  of  which  James  M.  Guffey,  the  astute  Democratic  leader 
and  successful  producer,  was  clerk.  Col.  Morton  arrived  in  August  of  1865 
with  a  carpet-bag  of  job-type.  His  first  work — tickets  for  passage  over  Little 
Pithole  Creek— the  first  printing  ever  done  at  Pithole,  was  never  paid  for.  The 
town  had  shoals  of  trusty,  generous  fellows — "God's  own  white  boys,"  Fred 
Wheeler  dubbed  them— whose  manliness  and  enterprise  and  liberality  were 
always  above  par. 

A  young  divine  preached  a  sermon  at  Pithole,  on  the  duty  of  self-consecra- 


170  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

tion,  so  effectively  that  a  hearer  presented  him  with  a  bundle  of  stock  in  a  com- 
pany operating  on  the  Hyner  farm.  The  preacher  sold  his  shares  for  ten- 
thousand  dollars  and  promptly  retired  from  the  pulpit  to  study  law  !  Rev.  S.  D. 
Steadman,  while  a  master  of  sarcasm  that  would  skewer  a  hypocrite  on  the 
point  of  irony,  was  particularly  at  home  in  the  realm  of  the  affections  and  of  the 
ideal.  In  matters  of  the  heart  and  soul  few  could  with  surer  touch  set  aflow 
the  founts  of  tender  pathos.  He  met  his  match  occasionally.  Rallying  a  friend 
on  his  Calvinism,  he  said,  "I  believe  Christians  may  fall  from  grace." 
"  Brother  Steadman,"  was  the  quick  rejoinder,  "you  need  not  argue  that ;  the 
flock  you're  tending  is  convincing  proof  that  the  doctrine  is  true  of  your  mem- 
bership." 

A  good  deal  of  fun  has  been  poked  at  the  Georgia  railroad  which  had  cow- 
catchers at  the  rear,  to  keep  cattle  from  walking  into  the  cars,  and  stopped  in 
the  woods  while  the  conductor  went  a  mile  for  milk  to  replenish  a  crying  baby's 
nursing-bottle.  On  my  last  trip  to  Pithole  by  rail  there  were  no  other  passen- 
gers. The  conductor  sat  beside  me  to  chat  of  former  days  and  the  decadence 
of  the  town  at  the  northern  end  of  the  line.  Four  miles  from  Oleopolis  fields  of 
wild  strawberries  "  wasted  their  sweetness  on  the  desert  air."  In  reply  to  my 
hint  that  the  berries  looked  very  tempting,  the  conductor  pulled  the  bell-rope 
and  stopped  the  train.  All  hands  feasted  on  the  luscious  fruit  until  satisfied. 
Coleridge,  who  observed  that  "Doubtless  the  Almighty  could  make  a  finer 
fruit  than  the  wild  strawberry,  but  doubtless  He  never  did,"  would  have  enjoyed 
the  scene.  "  Don't  hurry  too  much,"  the  conductor  called  after  me  at  Pithole 
"  we  can  start  forty  minutes  behind  time  and  I'll  wait  for  you  !"  The  rails  were 
taken  up  and  the  road  abandoned  in  the  fall,  but  the  strawberry-picking  is  as 
fresh  as  though  it  happened  yesterday. 

Long  ago  teamsters  would  start  from  the  mines  with  twenty  bushels  of  fif- 
teen-cent coal.  By  the  time  they  reached  Pithole  it  would  swell  to  thirty- 
five  bushels  of  sixty-cent  coal.  With  oil  for  back-loading  the  teamsters  made 
more  money  then  than  a  bond-juggler  with  a  cinch  on  the  United-States 
treasury. 

A  farmer's  wife  near  Pleasantville,  who  had  washed  dishes  forty  years, 
became  so  tired  of  the  monotony  that,  the  day  her  husband  leased  the  farm  for 
oil-purposes,  she  smashed  every  piece  of  crockery  in  the  house  and  went  out  on 
the  woodpile  and  laughed  a  full  hour.  It  was  the  first  vacation  of  her  married 
life  and  dish-washing  women  will  know  how  to  sympathize  with  the  poor  soul 
in  her  drudgery  and  her  emancipation. 

Pithole,  Shamburg,  Red-Hot,  Tip-Top.  Cash-Up,  Balltown  and  Oleopolis 
have  passed  into  history  and  many  of  their  people  have  gone  beyond  the  vale  of 
this  checkered  pilgrimage,  yet  memories  of  these  old  times  come  back  freighted 
with  thoughts  of  joyous  days  that  shall  return  no  more  forever. 


PITHOLE  REVISITED. 

The  following  lines,  first  contributed  by  me  to  the  Oil-City  Times  in  1870, 
went  the  rounds  twenty-five  years  ago  : 

Not  a  sound  was  heard,  not  a  shrill  whistle's  scream, 

As  our  footsteps  through  Pithole  we  hurried  ; 
Not  a  well  was  discharging  an  unctuous  stream 

Where  the  hopes  of  the  oilmen  lay  buried  ! 

We  walk'd  the  dead  city  till  far  in  the  night- 
Weeds  growing  where  wheels  once  were  turning- 
While  seeking  to  find  by  the  struggling  moonlight 
Some  symptom  of  gas  dimly  burning. 

No  useless  regret  should  encumber  man's  breast, 
Though  dry-holes  and  Pitholes  may  bound  him ; 

So  we  lay  like  a  warrior  taking  his  rest, 
Each  with  his  big  overcoat  'round  him. 

Few  and  short  were  the  prayers  we  said, 

We  spoke  not  a  sentence  of  sorrow, 
But  steadfastly  gazed  on  the  place  that  was  dead 

And  bitterly  long'd  for  the  morrow  ! 

We  thought,  as  we  lay  on  our  primitive  bed, 

An  old  sand-pump  reel  for  a  pillow, 
How  friends,  foes  and  strangers  were  heartily  bled 

And  ruin  swept  on  like  a  billow  ! 

Lightly  we  slept,  for  we  dreamt  of  the  scamp, 

And  in  fancy  began  to  upbraid  him, 
Who  swindled  us  out  of  our  very  last  stamp — 

In  the  grave  we  could  gladly  have  laid  him  ! 

We  rose  half  an  hour  in  advance  of  the  sun, 

But  little  refreshed  for  retiring  ! 
And,  feeling  as  stiff  as  a  son  of  a  gun, 

Set  off  on  a  hunt  for  some  firing. 

Slowly  and  sadly  our  hard-tack  went  down, 

Then  we  wrote  a  brief  sketch  of  our  story 
And  struck  a  bee-line  for  Oil  City's  fair  town, 

Leaving  Pithole  alone  in  its  glory  ! 


UP   THE    ALLEGHENY    RIVER. 


IX. 


A  BEE-LINE  FOR  THE   NORTH. 

ALONG  THE  ALLEGHENY  RIVER  FROM  OIL  CREEK— THE  FIRST  PETROLEUM  COM- 
PANY'S BIG  STRIKE— RULER  OF  PRESIDENT— FAGUNDAS,  TIDIOUTE  AND  TRIUMPH 
HILL — THE  ECONOMITES— WARREN  AND  FOREST — CHERRY  GROVE'S  BOMBSHELL 
— THE  GREAT  BRADFORD  REGION — JOHN  MCKEOWN'S  MILLIONS — RICHBURG 
LINED  UP — OVER  THE  CANADA  BORDER. 


Be  sure  you're  right,  then  go  ahead." — Davy  Crockett. 

Jes  foller  de  no'th  star  an"  yu'll  cum  out  right,  shuah." — Uncle  Ret 


"  Stay,  stay  thy  crystal  tide, 
Sweet  Allegheny ! 
•••  :  abide. 


I  would  by  thee  » — ^, 
Though  earlv  friends  denied — 
They  were  with  thee  allied, 

Sweet  Allegheny. — Marjor 
"  Better  a  year  of  Bradford  than  a  cycle  of  Cathay."—  Bradford  Era. 

"  Don't  you  turn  to  the  right,  don't  you  turn  to  the  left,  but  keep  in  the  middle  of  the  road. 

—Popular  Melody. 


•  Meat 


N  transforming  the 
bleak,  uninteresting 
Valley  of  Oil  Creek 
into  the  rich,  attrac- 
tive Valley  of  Petroleum 
the  course  of  develop- 
ments was  southward 
from  the  Drake  well. 
Although  some  persons 
imagined  that  a  pool  or 
a  strip  bordering  the 
stream  would  be  the 
limit  of  successful  opera- 
tions, others  entertained 
broader  ideas  and  be- 
lieved the  petroleum  sun 
was  not  doomed  to  rise 
and  set  on  Oil  Creek.  The  Evans  well  at  Franklin  confirmed  this  view.  Nat- 
urally the  Allegheny  River  was  regarded  with  favor  as  the  base  of  further  experi- 
ments. Quite  as  naturally  the  town  at  the  junction  of  the  river  and  the  creek 
was  benefited.  The  Michigan  Rock-Oil  Company  laid  out  building-lots  and 
Oil  City  grew  rapidly.  Across  the  Allegheny,  on  the  Downing  and  Bastian 

173 


M'KEAN  COUNTY,  PA. 


I74  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

farms,  William  L.  Lay  laid  out  the  village  of  Laytonia  in  1863  and  improved  the 
ferriage.  Phillips  &  Vanausdall,  who  struck  a  thirty-barrel  well  on  the  Down- 
ing farm  in  1861,  established  a  ferry  above  Bastian's  and  started  the  suburbs  of 
Albion  and  Downington.  In  1865  these  were  merged  into  Imperial  City,  which 
in  1866  was  united  with  Laytonia  and  Leetown  to  form  Venango  City.  In  1871 
the  boroughs  of  Venango  City  and  Oil  City  were  incorporated  as  the  city  of 
Oil  City,  with  William  M.  Williams  as  mayor.  Three  passenger-bridges,  one 
railroad  bridge  and  an  electric  street-railway  connect  the  north  and  south  sides 
of  the  "Hub  of  Oildom."  Beautiful  homes,  first-class  schools  and  churches, 
spacious  business-blocks,  paved  streets,  four  railroads,  electric-lights,  water- 
works, pipe-line  offices,  strong  banks,  enormous  tube-works,  huge  refineries, 
bright  newspapers,  a  paid  fire-department,  all  the  modern  conveniences  and 
twelve-thousand  clever  people  make  Oil  City  one  of  the  busiest  and  most 
desirable  towns  in  or  out  of  Pennsylvania. 

The  largest  of  twenty-five  or  thirty  wells  drilled  around  Walnut  Bend,  six 
miles  up  the  river,  in  1860-65,  was  rated  at  two-hundred  barrels.  Four  miles 
farther,  two  miles  north-east  of  the  mouth  of  Pithole  Creek,  John  Henry  settled 
on  the  north  bank  of  the  river  in  1802.  Henry's  Bend  perpetuates  the  name  of 
this  brave  pioneer,  who  reared  a  large  family  and  died  in  1858.  The  farm 
opposite  Henry's,  at  the  crown  of  the  bend,  Heydrick  Brothers,  of  French  Creek 
township,  leased  in  the  fall  of  1859.  Jesse  Heydrick  organized  the  Wolverine 
Oil-Company,  the  second  ever  formed  to  drill  for  petroleum.  Thirty  shares  of 
stock  constituted  its  capital  of  ten-thousand-five-hundred  dollars.  The  first 
well,  one-hundred-and-sixty  feet  deep,  pumped  only  ten  barrels  a  day,  giving 
Wolverine  shares  a  violent  chill.  The  second,  also  sunk  in  1860,  at  three-hun- 
dred feet  flowed  fifteen-hundred  barrels  !  Beside  this  giant  the  Drake  well  was 
a  midget.  The  Allegheny  had  knocked  out  Oil  Creek  at  a  stroke,  the  produc- 
tion of  the  Heydrick  spouter  doubling  that  of  all  the  others  in  the  region  put 
together.  It  was  impossible  to  tank  the  oil,  which  was  run  into  a  piece  of  low 
ground  and  formed  a  pond  through  which  yawl-boats  were  rowed  fifty  rods  ! 
By  this  means  seven-hundred  barrels  a  day  could  be  saved.  At  last  the  tubing 
was  drawn,  which  decreased  the  yield  and  rendered  pumping  necessary. 
The  well  flowed  and  pumped  about  one-hundred-thousand  barrels,  doing  eighty 
a  day  in  1864-5,  when  the  oldest  producer  in  Venango  county.  It  was  a  celeb- 
rity in  its  time  and  proved  immensely  profitable.  In  December  of  1862  Jesse 
Heydrick  went  to  Irvine,  forty  miles  up  the  river,  to  float  down  a  cargo  of 
empty  barrels.  Twenty-five  miles  from  Irvine,  on  the  way  back,  the  river  was 
frozen  from  bank  to  bank.  He  sawed  a  channel  a  mile,  ran  the  barrels  to  the 
well,  filled  them,  loaded  them  in  a  flat-boat  and  arrived  at  Pittsburg  on  a  cold 
Saturday  before  Christmas.  Oil  was  scarce,  the  zero  weather  having  prevented 
shipments,  and  he  sold  at  thirteen  dollars  a  barrel.  A  thaw  set  in,  the  market 
was  deluged  with  crude  and  in  four  days  the  price  dropped  to  two  dollars  ! 
Stock-fluctuations  had  no  business  in  the  game  with  petroleum. 

Wolverine  shares  climbed  out  of  sight.  Mr.  Heydrick  bought  the  whole 
batch,  the  lowest  costing  him  four-thousand  dollars  and  the  highest  fifteen- 
thousand.  He  sold  part  of  his  holdings  on  the  basis  of  fifteen-hundred-thou- 
sand dollars  for  the  well  and  farm  of  two-hundred  acres,  forty-three-thousand 
times  the  original  value  of  the  land  !  Heydrick  Brothers  bored  seventy  wells 
on  three  farms  in  President  township,  one  of  which  cost  eighteen  months'  labor 
and  ten-thousand  dollars  in  money  and  produced  nine  barrels  of  oil.  They 


A   BEE-LINE  FOR    THE  NORTH,  175 

disposed  of  it,  the  new  owner  fussed  with  it  and  for  five  years  received  fifteen 
barrels  of  oil  a  day. 

Accidents  and  incidents  resulting  from  the  Wolverine  operations  would  fill 
a  dime-novel.  Jesse  Heydrick,  organizer  of  the  company,  went  east  with  two 
or  three-hundred-thousand  dollars,  presumably  to  "play  Jesse"  with  the  bulls 
and  bears  of  Wall  Street.  He  returned  in  a  year  or  more  destitute  of  cash,  but 
loaded  with  entertaining  tales  of  adventure.  He  told  a  thrilling  story  of  his 
abduction  from  a  New- York  wharf  and  shipment  to  Cuba  by  a  band  of  kidnap- 
pers, who  stole  his  money  and  treated  him  harshly.  He  endured  severe  hard- 
ships and  barely  escaped  with  his  life  and  a  mine  of  experience.  Working  his 
way  north,  he  resumed  surveying,  prepared  valuable  maps  of  the  Butler  field 
and  was  a  standard  authority  on  oil-matters  in  the  district.  For  years  he  has 
been  connected  with  a  pipe-line  in  Ohio.  Mr.  Heydrick  is  cultured  and  social, 
brimful  of  information  and  interesting  recitals,  and  not  a  bilious  crank  who 
thinks  the  world  is  growing  worse  because  he  lost  a  fortune.  His  brother, 
Hon.  C.  Heydrick,  of  Franklin,  was  president  of  the  Oil-City  Bank,  incorpo- 
rated in  1864  as  a  bank  of  issue  and  forced  to  the  wall  in  1866  by  the  failure  of 
Culver,  Penn  &  Co.  Judge  Heydrick  served  one  year  on  the  Supreme  Bench 
with  distinguished  honor.  He  ranks  with  the  foremost  lawyers  of  Pennsylva- 
nia in  ability  and  legal  attainments.  James  Heydrick  was  a  skilled  surveyor 
and  Charles  W.  resided  at  the  old  homestead  on  French  Creek.  Heydrick 
Brothers  were  "the  Big  Four"  in  developments  that  brought  the  Allegheny 
River  region  into  the  petroleum-column.  It  is  singular  that  the  Heydrick  well, 
located  at  random  thirty-six  years  ago,  was  the  largest  ever  struck  on  the  banks 
of  the  crooked,  zig-zagged,  ox-bowed  stream. 

Eight  rods  square  on  the  Heydrick  tract  leased  for  five-thousand  dollars 
and  fifty  per  cent,  of  the  oil,  while  the  Wolverine  shares  attested  the  increasing 
wealth  of  the  oil-interest  and  the  pitch  to  which  oil-stocks  might  rise.  Hussey 
&  McBride  secured  the  Henry  farm  and  obtained  a  large  production  in  1860-1. 
The  Walnut  Tree  and  Orchard  wells  headed  the  list.  Warren  &  Brother  pumped 
oil  from  Pithole  to  Henryville,  a  small  town  on  the  flats,  of  whose  houses,  hotels, 
stores  and  shipping-platforms  no  scrap  survives.  The  Commercial  Oil-Com- 
pany bought  the  Culbertson  farm,  above  Henry,  and  drilled  extensively  on 
Muskrat  and  Culbertson  Runs.  Patrick  McCrea,  the  first  settler  on  the  river 
between  Franklin  and  Warren,  the  first  Allegheny  ferryman  north  of  Franklin 
and  the  first  Catholic  in  Venango  county,  migrated  from  Virginia  in  1797  to  the 
wilds  of  North-western  Pennsylvania.  C.  Curtiss  purchased  the  McCrea  tract  of 
four-hundred  acres  in  1861  and  stocked  it  in  the  Eagle  Oil-Company  of  Phila- 
delphia. Fair  wells  were  found  on  the  property  and  the  town  of  Eagle  Rock 
attained  the  dignity  of  three-hundred  buildings.  An  eagle  could  fly  away  with 
all  that  is  left  of  the  town  and  the  wells. 

Farther  along  Robert  Elliott,  who  removed  from  Franklin,  owned  one- 
thousand  acres  on  the  south  side  of  the  river  and  built  the  first  mill  in  President 
township.  Rev.  Ralph  Clapp  built  a  blast-furnace  in  1854-5,  a  mile  from  the 
mouth  of  Hemlock  Creek,  at  the  junction  of  which  with  the  Allegheny  a  big 
hotel,  a  store  and  a  shop  are  situated.  Mr.  Clapp  gained  distinction  in  the 
pulpit  and  in  business,  served  in  the  Legislature  and  died  in  1865.  His  son, 
Edwin  E.  Clapp,  has  a  block  of  six-thousand  acres,  the  biggest  slice  of  unde- 
veloped territory  in  Oildom.  Productive  wells  have  been  sunk  on  the  river- 
front, but  he  has  invariably  refused  to  sell  or  lease  save  once.  To  Kahle 
Brothers,  for  the  sake  of  his  father's  friendship  for  their  father,  he  leased  two- 


176 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


EDWIN  E.   CLAPP. 


hundred  acres,  on  which  many  good  wells  are  yielding  nicely.  Preferring  to 
keep  his  own  lands  untouched  until  he  "gets  good  and  ready,"  he  operated 
largely  at  Tidioute,  he  and  his  brother,  John  M.  Clapp,  acquiring  great  wealth. 
He  was  chairman  of  the  Producers'  Council  and  active  in  the  memorable  move- 
ments of  1871-3.  He  built  for  his  home  the  President  Hotel,  furnishing  it  with 
every  comfort  and  luxury  except  the  one  no 
bachelor  can  possess.  From  him  Macadam, 
Talbot  and  Nicholson  could  have  learned 
much  about  road  making.  At  his  own  ex- 
pense he  has  constructed  many  miles  of  first- 
class  roads  in  President,  grading,  ditching 
and  leveling  in  a  fashion  to  make  a  bicycler's 
mouth  water.  There  is  not  a  scintilla  of 
pride  or  affectation  in  his  composition.  It  is 
told  that  an  agent  of  the  Standard  Oil-Com- 
pany appointed  a  time  to  meet  him  "  on  im- 
portant business. ' '  The  interview  lasted  two 
minutes.  "What  is  the  business?"  inter- 
rogated Clapp.  "Our  company  authorizes 
me  to  offer  you  one-million  dollars  for  your 
lands  in  President  and  I  am  prepared  to  pay 
you  the  money."  "Anything  else?"  "No." 
"Well,  the  land  isn't  for  sale;  good-morning!"  Off  went  Clapp  as  coolly  as 
though  he  had  merely  received  a  bid  for  a  bushel  of  potatoes.  Whether  true  or 
not,  the  story  is  characteristic.  As  a  friend  to  swear  by,  a  helper  of  the  poor,  a 
believer  in  fair-play,  a  prime  joker  and  an  inimitable  weaver  of  comic  yarns  few 
can  equal  and  none  excel  the  "  President  of  President." 

Around  Tionesta,  the  county-seat  of  Forest,  numerous  holes  were  punched. 
Thomas  Mills,  who  operated  in  Ohio  and  missed  opening  the  Sisterville  field  by 
a  scratch,  drilled  in  1861-2.  The  late  George  S.  Hunter — he  built  Tionesta's 
first  bridge  and  ought  to  have  a  monument  for  enterprise — hunted  earnestly  for 
paying  territory.  Up  Tionesta  Creek  operations  extended  slowly,  but  develop- 
ments in  1882-3  atoned  for  the  delay.  Then  Forest  county  was  "  the  cynosure 
of  all  eyes,"  each  week  springing  fresh  surprises.  Balltown  had  a  crop  of  dry 
holes,  followed  by  wells  of  all  grades  from  twenty  barrels  to  fifteen-hundred. 
At  Henry's  Mills  and  on  the  Cooper  lands,  north-east  of  Balltown  and  running 
into  Warren  county,  spouters  were  decidedly  in  vogue.  Reno  No.  i  well,  fin- 
ished in  December  of  1882,  flowed  twenty-eight-hundred  barrels  !  Reno  No.  2, 
McCalmont  Oil-Company's  No.  i,  Patterson's  and  the  Anchor  Oil-Company's 
No.  14  went  over  the  fifteen-hundred  mark.  In  the  midst  of  these  gushers 
Melvin,  Walker  &  Shannon's  duster  indicated  spotted  territory,  uncertain  as 
the  verdict  of  a  petit  jury.  The  Forest  splurge  held  the  entire  oil-trade  on  the 
ragged  edge  for  months.  Every  time  one  or  more  fellows  took  to  the  woods 
to  manipulate  a  wildcat-well  oil  took  a  tumble.  Notwithstanding  the  magni- 
tude of  the  business,  with  thirty-six-million  barrels  of  oil  in  stock  and  untold 
millions  of  dollars  invested,  the  report  from  Balltown  or  Cooper  of  a  new  strike 
caused  a  bad  break.  Some  owners  of  important  wells  worked  them  as  "mys- 
teries" to  "milk  the  trade."  Derricks  were  boarded  tightly,  armed  men  kept 
intruders  from  approaching  too  near  and  information  was  withheld  or  falsified 
until  the  gang  of  manipulators  ''worked  the  market."  To  offset  this  leading 
dealers  employed  "scouts,"  whose  mission  was  to  get  correct  news  at  all 


A   BEE-LINE  FOR    THE  NORTH. 


177 


hazards.  The  duties  of  these  trusty  fellows  involved  great  labor,  night  watches, 
incessant  vigilance  and  sometimes  personal  danger.  The  ' '  mystery ' '  racket  and 
the  introduction  of  "scouts  "  were  new  elements  in  the  business,  necessitated 
by  the  peculiar  tactics  of  a  small  clique  whose  methods  were  not  always  credit- 
able. The  passing  of  the  Forest  field,  which  declined  with  unprecedented 
rapidity,  practically  ended  the  system  that  had  terrorized  the  oil-exchanges  in 
New  York,  Oil  City,  Bradford  and  Pittsburg.  The  collapse  of  the  Cooper  pool 
was  more  unexpected  than  the  striking  of  a  gusher  would  be  under  any  circum- 
stances. Its  influence  upon  oil-values  was  ridiculously  disproportionate  to  its 
merits. 

Closely  allied  to  Balltown  and  Cooper  in  its  principal  features,  its  injurious 
effects  and  sudden  depreciation,  was  the  field  that  taught  the  Forest  lesson.  On 
May  nineteenth,  1882,  the  oil-trade  was  paralyzed  by  the  report  of  a  big  well  in 
Cherry  Grove  township,  Warren  county,  miles  from  previous  developments. 
The  general  condition  of  the  region  was  prosperous,  with  an  advancing  market 
and  a  favorable  outlook.  The  new  well— the  famous  "  646  "—struck  the  country 
like  a  cyclone.  Nobody  had  heard  a  whisper  of  the  finding  of  oil  in  the  hole 
George  Dimick  was  drilling  near  the 
border  of  Warren  and  Forest.  The 
news  that  it  was  flowing  twenty-five- 
hundred  barrels  flashed  over  the  wires 
with  disastrous  consequences.  The 
excitement  in  the  oil-exchanges,  as  the 
price  of  certificates  dropped  thirty  to 
fifty  per  cent,  in  a  few  moments,  was 
indescribable.  Margins  and  small 
holders  were  wiped  out  in  a  twinkling 
and  the  losses  aggregated  millions. 
It  was  a  panic  of  the  first  water,  far- 
reaching  and  ruinous.  A  plunge  from 
one-thirty  to  fifty-five  cents  for  crude 
meant  distress  and  bankruptcy  to 
thousands  of  producers  and  persons 
carrying  oil.  Men  comfortably  off  in 
the  morning  were  beggared  by  noon. 
Other  wells  speedily  followed  "646." 
The  Murphy,  the  Mahoopany  and 
scores  more  swelled  the  daily  yield 
to  thirty-thousand  barrels.  Five-hun- 
dred wells  were  rushed  down  with  the  utmost  celerity.  Big  companies  bought 
lands  at  big  prices  and  operated  on  a  big  scale.  Pipe-lines  were  laid,  iron-tanks 
erected  and  houses  reared  by  the  hundred.  Cherry  Grove  dwarfed  the  richest 
portions  of  the  region  into  insignificance.  It  bade  fair  to  swamp  the  business, 
to  flood  the  world  with  cheap  oil,  to  compel  the  abandonment  of  entire  districts 
and  to  crush  the  average  operator.  But  if  the  rise  of  Cherry  Grove  was  vividly 
picturesque,  its  fall  was  startlingly  phenomenal.  One  dark  December  morning 
the  workmen  noticed  that  the  Forest  Oil-Company's  largest  gusher  had  stopped 
flowing.  Within  a  week  the  disease  had  spread  like  an  epidemic.  Spouters 
ceased  to  spout  and  obstinately  declined  to  pump.  The  yield  was  counted  by 
dozens  of  barrels  instead  of  thousands.  In  January  one-fourth  the  wells  were 
deserted  and  the  machinery  removed.  Three-hundred  wells  on  April  first 


IN  THE  MIDDLE  FIELD. 


178  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

yielded  hardly  two-thousand  barrels,  three-quarters  what  "  646  "  or  the  Murphy 
had  done  alone  !  The  suddenness  of  the  topple  cast  Oil  Creek  into  the  shade 
and  eclipsed  Pithole  itself.  Piles  of  junk  represented  miles  of  pipe-lines  and 
acres  of  tanks.  The  Cooper  fever  was  breaking  out  and,  with  Henry's  Mills 
and  Balltown,  repeated  in  1883  the  hurrah  of  1882.  For  eleven  months  the 
Forest-Warren  pools  fretted  and  fumed,  producing  five-million  barrels  of  oil 
and  having  the  trade  by  the  throat.  In  that  brief  period  Cherry  Grove  came 
and  went,  Cooper  threatened  and  subsided,  and  Balltown  was  bowled  out. 
Nine-tenths  of  the  operators  figured  as  heavy  losers.  Pennsylvania's  production 
shrank  from  ninety-thousand  barrels  to  sixty-thousand  and  a  healthy  reaction 
set  in.  Petroleum  developments  often  presented  remarkable  peculiarities,  but 
the  strangest  of  all  was  the  readiness  with  which  speculators  time  and  again 
fell  a  prey  to  the  schemes  of  Forest-Warren  jobbers,  whose  "picture  is  turned 
to  the  wall." 

The  professional ' '  oil-scout ' '  first  became  prominent  at  Cherry  Grove.  He 
was  neither  an  Indian  fighter  nor  a  Pinkerton  detective,  although  possessing 
the  courage  and  sharpness  of  both.  He  combined  a  knowledge  of  woodcraft 
and  human-nature  with  keen  discernment,  acutejudgment  and  infinite  patience. 
S.  B.  Hughes,  J.  C.  Tennent,  P.  C.  Boyle,  J.  C 
McMullen,  Frank  H.  Taylor,  Joseph  Cappeau, 
James  Emery  and  J.  H.  Rathbun  were  captains 
in  the  good  work  of  worrying  and  circumvent- 
ing the  ' '  mystery  ' '  men.  Hughes  rendered  ser- 
vice that  won  the  confidence  of  his  employers  and 
brought  him  a  competence.  Never  caught  nap- 
ping, for  one  special  feat  he  was  said  to  have  re- 
ceived ten-thousand  dollars.  It  was  not  uncom- 
mon for  him  and  his  comrades  to  keep  their 
boots  on  a  week  at  a  stretch,  to  snatch  a  nap  un- 
der a  tree  or  on  a  pile  of  easing,  to  creep  on  all- 

S.    B.   HUGHES.  -  ....  11-  i 

fours  inside  the  guard-lines  and  watch  pale  Luna 

wink  merrily  and  the  bright  stars  twinkle  while  reclining  on  the  damp  ground 
to  catch  the  faintest  sound  from  a  mystified  well.  Boyle  and  Tennent  made  bril- 
liant plays  in  the  campaign  of  1882-3.  Captain  J.  T.  Jones,  failing  to  get  correct 
information  regarding  "646,"  lost  heavily  on  long  oil  when  the  Cherry  Grove 
gusher  hypnotized  the  market  and  sent  Tennent  from  Bradford  to  size  up  the 
wells  and  the  movements  of  those  manipulating  them.  Michael  Murphy,  learning 
that  Grace  &  Dimick  were  quietly  drilling  a  wildcat-well  on  lot  646,  smelled  a 
large-sized  rodent  and  concluded  to  share  in  the  sport.  For  one-hundred  dollars 
an  acre  and  one-eighth  the  usufruct  Horton,  Crary  &  Co.,  the  Sheffield  tanners, 
sold  him  lot  619,  north-east  of  646.  Murphy  had  cut  his  eye-teeth  as  an  im- 
porter— John  S.  Davis  was  his  partner — of  oil-barrels,  an  exporter  of  crude  and 
an  operator  at  Bradford.  He  pushed  a  well  on  the  south-west  corner  of  his 
purchase  and  secured  lands  in  the  vicinity.  Grace  &  Dimick  held  back  their 
well  a  month  to  tie  up  lots  and  complete  arrangements  regarding  the  market. 
Everything  was  managed  adroitly.  The  trade  had  not  a  glimmer  of  suspicion 
that  a  bombshell  might  be  fired  at  any  moment.  Murphy's  rig  burned  down  on 
May  fifteenth,  he  was  in  Washington  trying  to  close  a  deed  for  another  tract 
and  "646  "  was  put  through  the  sand.  On  June  second  Murphy's  No.  i,  which 
he  guarded  strictly  after  rebuilding  the  rig,  flowed  sixteen-hundred  barrels. 
His  No.  2,  finished  on  July  third,  flowed  thirty-six-hundred  barrels  in  twenty- 


A  BEE-LINE  FOR   THE  NORTH.  179 

four  hours  !  The  Mahoopany  and  a  half-dozen  others  aided  in  the  demoraliza- 
tion of  prices.  Murphy  sold  eighty  acres  of  lot  619  for  fifty- thousand  dollars  to 
the  McCalmont  Oil-Company.  The  Anchor  Oil-Company's  gusher  on  lot  647 
caught  fire,  without  curtailing  the  flow,  and  was  burning  furiously  as  "Jim" 
Tennent  arrived  from  Bradford.  The  scouts  had  their  hands  full,  with  the 
"white-sand  pools"  and  the  keenest  masters  of  "mystery  wells"  to  demand 
their  best  licks. 

Watching  Murphy's  dry-hole  on  lot  633  was  Tennent's  initial  job.  The 
Whale  Oil-Company's  duster  on  lot  648  next  claimed  the  attention  of  the  scouts. 
It  had  been  drilled  below  the  sand-level  and  the  tools  left  at  the  bottom.  On 
Sunday  night,  July  ninth,  1882,  Boyle,  Tennent  and  two  companions  raised  the 
tools  by  hand,  measured  the  well  with  a  steel-line  and  telegraphed  their  princi- 
pals that  it  was  dry.  This  report  jumped  the  market  on  Monday  morning  from 
forty-nine  cents  to  sixty.  The  Shannon  well  on  the  Cooper  tract  needed  con- 
stant care  and  the  scouts  divided  the  labor.  Tennent  and  Rathbun  one  night 
sought  to  crawl  near  the  well.  A  twig  snapped  off  and  a  guard  fired,  the  ball 
grazing  "Jim's"  ear.  In  December  Boyle  and  W.  C.  Edwards  drilled  Grandin 
No.  4  below  the  sand  before  the  owners  knew  the  rock  had  been  reached.  Its 
failure  surprised  the  trade  as  much  as  the  success  of  "646."  Boyle  actually 
posted  the  guards  to  keep  intruders  away  and  they  refused  to  let  W.  W.  Hague, 
an  owner  of  the  well,  inside  the  line  until  the  contractor  appeared  and  permitted 
him  to  pass  !  Boyle  and  Tennent  did  fine  work  north  of  the  Cooper  field.  At 
the  Shultz  well  Tennent,  in  order  to  make  a  quick  trip  of  a  half-mile  to  the  pipe- 
line telegraph,  clung  to  the  tail  of  Cappeau's  horse  and  kept  up  with  the  animal's 
gallop.  Mercury  might  not  have  endorsed  that  style  of  locomotion,  but  it 
served  the  purpose  and  got  the  news  to  Jones  ahead  of  everybody  else.  Ten- 
nent played  the  market  skillfully,  cleared  twenty-five-thousand  dollars  on  Macks- 
burg  lands  and  operated  with  tolerable  success  in  McKean  county.  Nine  years 
ago  he  removed  to  his  thousand-acre  prairie  farm  in  Kansas,  the  land  of  sock- 
less  statesman  and  nimble  grasshoppers. 

Boyle,  brimful  of  novel  resources,  puzzled  the  ' '  mystery  "  chaps  by  his  bold 
ingenuity  and  usually  beat  them  at  their  own  game.  He  squarely  overmatched 
the  field-marshals  of  manipulation.  His  fertile  brain  originated  the  plan  of  drill- 
ing Grandin  No.  4  and  other  test  wells.  The  night  he  went  to  drill  the  Grace 
well  through  the  sand  he  paid  the  ferryman  at  Dunham's  Mills  notto  answer  any 
calls  until  morning,  thus  cutting  off  all  chance  of  pursuit  and  surprise.  At  the 
well  Boyle  wrote  an  order  to  deliver  the  well  to  Tennent,  signing  it  Pickwick, 
and  the  drillers  retired  to  bed !  Somebody  had  been  there  before  them  and 
poured  back  the  sand-pumpings.  At  the  Patterson  well  Boyle  devised  a  code 
of  tin-horn  signals  that  outwitted  the  men  inside  the  derrick  and  flashed  the 
result  to  Gusher  City.  The  number  of  expedients  continually  devised  was  a 
marvel.  Thanks  to  the  energy  and  ability  of  these  tireless  scouts,  of  whose 
midnight  exploits,  wild  rides,  hairbreadth  escapes  and  queer  adventures  many 
pages  could  be  written,  the  effect  of  "mysteries"  was  frequently  neutralized 
and  at  length  the  whole  system  of  guarded  wells,  bull-dogs  and  shot-guns  was 
eliminated. 

The  Forest-Warren  white-sand  pools  marked  a  new  era  in  developments, 
with  new  ideas  and  new  methods  to  hoodoo  speculation.  Cherry  Grove  had 
wilted  from  twenty-five-thousand  barrels  in  September  to  three-thousand  in 
December,  when  Cooper  Hill  loomed  above  the  horizon  and  Balltown  appeared 
on  deck.  Shallow  wells  had  been  sunk  far  up  Tionesta  Creek  in  1862-3.  Near 


i8o  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

the  two  dwellings,  saw-mill,  school-house  and  barn  dubbed  Foxburg,  the  stamp- 
ing-ground of  deer-hunters  and  bark-peelers,  Marcus  Rulings — his  name  is  a 
synonym  for  successful  wildcatting— in  1876  drilled  a  well  that  smacked  of  oil. 
The  derrick  stood  ten  years  and  globules  of  grease  bubbled  up  from  the  depths, 
a  thousand  feet  beneath.  C.  A.  Shultz,  a  piano-tuner,  taking  his  cue  from  the 
Hulings  well,  interested  Frederick  Morck,  a  Warren  jeweler,  and  leased  the 
Fox  estate  and  contiguous  lands  in  iSSi.  The  Blue-Jay  and  two  Darling  wells, 
small  producers,  created  a  ripple  which  dry-holes  evaporated.  They  were  on 
Warrant  2991,  Howe  township,  known  to  fame  as  the  Cooper  tract,  north-west 
of  Foxburg.  The  conditions  of  the  lease  required  a  well  at  the  western  end  of 
the  warrant.  Cherry  Grove  was  at  its  zenith,  crude  was  flirting  with  the  fifties 
and  operators  considered  the  Blue-Jay  chick  a  lean  bird.  J.  Mainwaring  leased 
one-hundred  acres  from  Morck  &  Shultz  and  built  a  rig  at  the  head  of  a  wild 
ravine,  in  the  sunless  woodland,  a  half-mile  from 
Tionesta  Creek.  He  lost  faith  and  the  Main- 
waring  lease  and  rig  passed  to  P.  M.  Shannon, 
of  Bradford.  Born  in  Clarion  county,  Philip 
Martin  Shannon  enlisted  at  fourteen,  served 
gallantly  through  the  war,  traveled  as  salesman 
for  a  Pittsburg  house  and  in  1870  cast  his  lot 
with  the  oilmen  at  Parker.  A  pioneer  at  Mil- 
lerstown  and  its  burgess  in  1874,  he  filled  the 
office  capably  and  in  1876  received  a  big  ma- 
jority at  the  Republican  primary  for  the  legis- 
lative nomination.  The  county  ring  counted 
him  out.  He  drifted  with  the  tide  to  Bullion, 
removed  to  Bradford  in  1879,  was  elected  mayor 
in  1885  and  discharged  his  official  duties  with 
excellent  discretion.  Temperate  in  habits  and 
upright  in  conduct,  Mayor  Shannon  had  been 

an  observer  and  not  a  participant  in  the  nether  side  of  oil-region  life  and  knew 
where  to  draw  the  line.  He  was  a  favorite  in  society,  high  in  Masonic  circles 
and  efficient  in  securing  lands  for  firms  with  which  he  had  become  connected. 
Pittsburg  is  now  his  home  and  he  manages  the  company  that  is  developing  the 
Wyoming  field.  Mr.  Shannon  is  always  generous  and  courteous.  He  could 
give  a  scout  "the  marble  heart,"  lecture  an  offender,  denounce  a  wrong  or 
decline  to  furnish  points  regarding  his  mystery-well  in  a  good-natured  way  that 
disarmed  criticism.  He  retains  his  old-time  geniality  and  prosperity  has  not 
compelled  him  to  buy  hats  three  sizes  larger  than  he  wore  at  Parker  and  Mil- 
lerstown  "in  the  days  of  auld  lang-syne." 

A.  B.  Walker  and  T.  J.  Melvin  joined  Shannon  in  his  Cooper  venture.  A 
road  was  cut  through  the  dense  forest  from  the  Fox  farm-house  up  the  steep 
hill  to  the  Mainwaring  derrick.  An  engine  and  boiler  were  dragged  to  the  spot 
and  Captain  Haight  contracted  to  drill  the  hole.  Melvin  and  Walker,  believing 
the  well  a  failure  at  eighteen-hundred  feet,  went  to  Cherry  Grove  on  July  twenty- 
fifth,  1882.  Shannon  stayed  to  urge  the  drill  a  trifle  farther  and  it  struck  the 
sand  at  one  o'clock  next  day.  He  drove  in  two  pine-plugs,  sent  a  messenger  for 
his  partners  and  filled  the  well  with  water  to  shut  in  the  oil.  The  well  wouldn't 
consent  to  be  plugged  and  drowned.  The  stream  broke  loose  at  three  o'clock, 
hurling  the  tools  and  plugs  into  the  Forest  ozone.  Shannon  and  Haight,  stand- 
ing in  the  derrick,  narrowly  escaped  death  as  the  tools  crashed  through  the 


A  BEE-LINE  FOR   THE  NORTH.  181 

roof  and  fell  to  the  floor.  More  plugs,  sediment  and  old  clothes  were  jammed 
down  to  conceal  the  true  inwardness  of  the  well,  news  of  which  was  expected  to 
pulverize  the  market.  Heavy  flows  following  the  expulsion  of  the  tools  led  the 
owners  to  anticipate  a  big  strike.  Outposts  were  established  and  guards,  each 
armed  with  a  Winchester  rifle,  were  changed  every  six  hours.  The  wildcat- 
well,  eight  miles  from  a  telegraph-wire,  became  an  entrenched  camp  with  a  half- 
dozen  wakeful  scouts  besieging  the  citadel.  Vicksburg  was  not  guarded  more 
vigilantly.  If  a  twig  cracked  or  an  owl  hooted  a  shower  of  bullets  whizzed  in 
the  direction  of  the  noise.  Through  August  the  well  was  permitted  to  slumber, 
oil  that  forced  a  passage  in  spite  of  the  obstructions  running  into  pits  inside 
"  the  dead-line."  The  trade  staggered  under  the  adverse  fear  of  the  mystery. 
Bradford  operators  formed  a  syndicate  with  the  owners  in  lands  and  speculation 
and  sold  a  million  barrels  of  crude  short.  When  everything  was  ready  to  spring 
the  trap  some  of  the  parties  went  to  drill  out  the  plugs  and  usher  in  the  market- 
crusher.  ' '  We  have  a  jack-pot  to  open  at  our  pleasure ' '  remarked  one  of  them, 
voicing  the  sentiment  of  all.  None  looked  for  anything  smaller  than  fifteen- 
hundred  barrels.  The  four  drillers  were  discharged  and  two  trusted  lieutenants 
turned  the  temper-screw  and  dressed  the  bits.  Ten  plugs  and  a  mass  of  dirt 
must  be  cleaned  out.  From  a  distance  the  scouts  timed  every  motion  of  the 
walking-beam,  gluing  their  eyes  to  field-glasses  that  not  a  symptom  of  a  flow 
might  slip  their  eager  gaze,  "  like  stout  Cortez  when  he  stared  at  the  Pacific 
upon  a  peak  in  Darien. ' '  Swift  horses  were  fastened  to  convenient  trees,  saddled 
and  bridled  for  a  race  to  the  telegraph-office.  A  slice  of  bread  and  a  can  of 
beans  served  for  food.  For  days  the  drilling  continued.  On  September  four- 
teenth the  last  splinter  of  the  plugs  was  extracted,  the  sand  was  cut  deeper  and 
— the  well  didn't  respond  worth  a  cent !  The  faithful  scouts,  who  had  stood 
manfully  between  the  trade  and  the  manipulators,  rushed  the  report.  It  was  a 
bracer  to  the  market.  Bears  who  pinned  their  hopes  to  the  Shannon  well,  the 
pivot  upon  which  petroleum  hinged,  scrambled  to  cover  their  shorts  at  heavy 
loss.  Balltown  duplicated  some  of  the  Cooper  experiences,  mystery-wells  on 
Porcupine  Run  agitating  the  trade  in  the  spring  of  1883.  The  Cherry  Grove. 
Cooper  Hill  and  Balltown  pools  yielded  eight  or  nine- million  barrels.  Opera- 
tions extended  to  Sheffield  and  the  cream  was  soon  skimmed  oft".  The  middle 
field  had  enjoyed  a  very  lively  inning. 

Two  miles  back  of  Trunkeyville,  on  the  west  side  of  the  Allegheny,  Cal- 
vert,  Gilchrist  &  Risley  drilled  the  Venture  well  in  April,  1870,  on  the  Tuttle 
farm.  Fisher  Brothers,  of  Oil  City,  and  O.  D.  Harrington,  of  Titusville,  bought 
the  well  for  fifteen-thousand  dollars  when  it  touched  the  third  sand.  It  was 
eight-hundred  feet  deep,  flowed  three-hundred  barrels  and  started  the  Fagundas 
field.  The  day  after  it  began  flowing  the  Fishers,  Adnah  Neyhart,  Grandin 
Brothers  and  David  Bently  paid  one-hundred-and-twenty-thousand  dollars  for 
the  Fagundas  farm  of  one-hundred-and-sixty  acres.  Mrs.  Fagundas,  one  son 
and  one  daughter  died  within  three  months  of  the  sale.  Neyhart  &  Grandin 
bought  a  half-interest  in  David  Beatty's  farm  for  ninety-thousand  dollars.  The 
Lady  Burns  well,  on  the  Wilkins  farm,  finished  in  June,  seconded  the  Venture. 
A  daily  production  of  three- thousand  barrels  and  a  town  of  twenty-five-hundred 
population  followed  quickly.  A  mile  from  Fagundas  operations  on  the  Hunter, 
Pearson,  Guild  and  Berry  farms  brought  the  suburb  of  Gillespie  into  being. 
The  territory  lasted  and  a  small  yield  is  obtained  to-day.  A  half-dozen  houses, 
the  Venture  derrick,  Andrews  &  Co.'s  big  store  and  the  office  in  which  whole- 
souled  M.  Compton — he's  in  Pittsburg  with  the  Forest  Oil-Company  now — 


1 82  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

labored  as  secretary  of  the  Producers'  Council,  hold  the  fort  on  the  site  of  well- 
nigh  forgotten  Fagundas.  William  H.  Calvert,  who  projected  the  Venture 
well,  died  at  Sistersville,  West  Virginia,  on  February  seventeenth,  1896.  He 
had  drilled  on  Oil  Creek  and  at  Pithole,  operated  in  the  southern  field  and  was 
negotiating  for  a  block  of  lands  near  Sistersville  when  a  clot  of  blood  on  the 
brain  cut  short  his  active  life. 

David  Beatty  had  drilled  on  Oil  Creek  in  1859-60  with  John  Fertig.  He 
settled  on  a  farm  in  Warren  county  "to  get  away  from  the  oil."  His  farm  was 
smothered  in  oil  by  the  Fagundas  development.  He  removed  to  the  pretty 
town  of  Warren,  building  an  elegant  home  on  the  bank  of  Conewango  Creek. 
Fortune  hounded  him  and  insisted  upon  heaping  up  his  riches.  John  Bell  drilled 
a  fifty-barrel  well  eighty  rods  above  the  mansion.  Wells  surrounding  his  lot  and 
in  his  yard  emitted  oil.  Mr.  Beatty  resigned  himself  to  the  inevitable  and  lived 
at  Warren  until  called  to  his  final  rest  some  years  ago.  His  case  resembled  the 
heroine  in  Milton  Nobles's  Phenix,  where  "the  villain  still  pursued  her."  The 
boys  used  to  relate  how  a  negro,  the  first  man  to  die  at  Oil  City  after  the  advent 
of  petroleum,  was  buried  in  a  lot  on  the  flats.  Somebody  wanted  that  precise 
spot  next  day  to  drill  a  well  and  the  corpse  was  planted  on  the  hill-side.  The 
next  week  that  particular  location  was  selected  for  a  well  and  the  body  was 
again  exhumed.  To  be  sure  of  getting  out  of  reach  of  the  drill  the  friends  of 
the  deceased  boated  his  remains  down  the  river  to  Butler  county.  Twelve  years 
later  the  bones  were  disinterred — an  oil-company  having  leased  the  old  grave- 
yard—and put  in  the  garden  of  the  dead  man's  son,  to  be  handy  for  any  further 
change  of  base  that  may  be  required. 

At  East  Hickory  the  Foster  well,  drilled  in  1863,  flowed  three-hundred  bar- 
rels of  amber  oil.  Two-hundred  wells  were  sunk  in  the  Hickory  district,  which 
proved  as  tough  as  Old  Hickory  to  nineteen-twentieths  of  the  operators.  Three 
Hickory  Creeks— East  Hickory  and  Little  Hickory  on  the  east  and  West  Hick- 
ory— enter  the  river  within  two  miles.  Near  the  mouth  of  West  Hickory  three 
Scotchmen  named  McKinley  bored  a  well  two-hundred-and-thirty  feet  in  1861. 
They  found  oil  and  were  preparing  to  tube  the  well  when  the  war  broke  out 
and  they  abandoned  the  field.  A  well  on  the  flats,  drilled  in  1865,  flowed  two- 
hundred  barrels  of  lubricating  oil,  occasioning  a  furore.  One  farm  sold  for  a 
hundred-thousand  dollars  and  adjacent  lands  were  snapped  up  eagerly. 

Ninety-five  years  ago  hardy  lumbermen  settled  permanently  in  Deerfield 
township,  Warren  county,  thirty  miles  above  the  mouth  of  Oil  Creek.  Twenty 
years  later  a  few  inhabitants,  supported  by  the  lumber  trade,  had  collected  near 
the  junction  of  a  small  stream  with  the  Allegheny.  Bold  hills,  grand  forests, 
mountain  rills  and  the  winding  river,  sprinkled  with  green  islets,  invested  the 
spot  with  peculiar  charms.  Upon  the  creek  and  hamlet  the  poetic  Indian  name 
of  Tidioute,  signifying  a  cluster  of  islands,  was  fittingly  bestowed.  Samuel 
Grandin,  who  located  near  Pleasantville,  Venango  county,  in  1822,  removed  to 
Tidioute  in  1839.  He  owned  large  tracts  of  timber-lands  and  increased  the 
mercantile  and  lumbering  operations  that  gave  him  prominence  and  wealth. 
Mr.  Grandin  maintained  a  high  character  and  died  at  a  ripe  age.  His  oldest 
son,  John  Livingston  Grandin,  returned  from  college  in  1857  and  engaged  in 
business  with  his  father,  assuming  almost  entire  control  when  the  latter  retired 
from  active  pursuits.  News  of  Col.  Drake's  well  reached  the  four-hundred 
busy  residents  of  the  lumber-center  in  two  days.  Col.  Robinson,  of  Titusville, 
rehearsed  the  story  of  the  wondrous  event  to  an  admiring  group  in  Samuel 
Grandin's  store.  Young  J.  L.  listened  intently,  saddled  his  horse  and  in  an 


A  BEE-LINE  FOR    THE  NORTH.  183 

hour  purchased  thirty  acres  of  the  Campbell  farm,  on  Gordon  Run,  below  the 
village,  for  three-hundred  dollars.  An  "oil-spring"  on  the  property  was  the 
attraction.  Next  morning  he  contracted  with  H.  H.  Dennis,  a  man  of  mechani- 
cal skill,  to  drill  a  well  "  right  in  the  middle  of  the  spring."  The  following  day 
a  derrick— four  pieces  of  scantling— towered  twenty  feet,  a  spring-pole  was  pro- 
cured, the  "spring"  was  dug  to  the  rock,  and  the  "tool"  swung  at  the  first 
oil-well  in  Warren  county  and  among  the  first  in  Pennsylvania.  Dennis  ham- 
mered a  drilling-tool  from  a  bar  of  iron  three  feet  long,  flattening  one  end  to 
cut  two-and-a-half  inches,  the  diameter  of  the  hole.  In  the  upper  end  of  the 
drill  he  formed  a  socket,  to  hold  an  inch-bar  of  round  iron,  held  by  a  key  riveted 
though  and  lengthened  as  the  depth  required.  Two  or  three  times  a  day,  when 
the  "  tool "  was  drawn  out  to  sharpen  the  bit  and  clean  the  hole,  the  key  had  to 
be  cut  off  at  each  joint!  With  this  rude  outfit  drilling  began  the  first  week  of 
September,  1859,  and  the  last  week  of  October  the  well  was  down  one-hundred- 
and-thirty-four  feet.  Tubing  would  not  go  into  the  hole  and  it  was  enlarged  to 
four  inches.  The  discarded  axle  of  a  tram-car,  used  to  carry  lumber  from  Gor- 
don Run  to  the  river,  furnished  iron  for  the  reamer.  Days,  weeks  and  months 
were  consumed  at  this  task.  At  last,  when  the  hole  had  been  enlarged  its  full 
depth,  the  reamer  was  let  down  "  to  make  sure  the  job  was  finished."  It  stuck 
fast,  never  saw  daylight  again  and  the  well  sunk  with  so  much  labor  had  not 
one  drop  of  oil  ! 

Other  wells  in  the  locality  fared  similarly,  none  finding  oil  nearer  than 
Dennis  Run,  a  half-mile  distant.  There  scores  of  large  wells  realized  fortunes 
for  their  owners.  In  two  years  James  Parshall  was  a  half-million  ahead.  He 
settled  at  Titusville  and  built  the  Parshall  House— a  mammoth  hotel  and  opera- 
house— which  fire  destroyed.  The  "spring"  on  the  Campell  farm  is  in  exist- 
ence and  the  gravel  is  impregnated  with  petroleum,  supposed  to  percolate 
through  fissures  in  the  rocks  from  Dennis  Run. 

During  the  summer  of  1860  developments  extended  across  and  down  the 
river  a  mile  from  Tidioute.  The  first  producing  well  in  the  district,  owned  by 
King  &  Ferris,  of  Titusville,  started  in  the  fall  at  three-hundred  barrels  and 
boomed  the  territory  amazingly.  It  was  on  the  W.  W.  Wallace  lands— five- hun- 
dred acres  below  town — purchased  in  1860  by  the  Tidioute  &  Warren  Oil-Com- 
pany, the  third  in  the  world.  Samuel  Grandin,  Charles  Hyde  and  Jonathan 
Watson  organized  it.  {.  L.  Grandin,  treasurer  and  manager  of  the  company,  in 
eight  years  paid  the  stockholders  twelve-hundred-thousand  dollars  dividends  on 
a  capital  of  ten-thousand  !  He  leased  and  sub-leased  farms  on  both  sides  of  the 
Allegheny,  drilling  some  dry-holes,  many  medium  wells  and  a  few  large  ones. 
He  shipped  crude  to  the  seaboard,  built  pipe-lines  and  iron-tanks  and  became 
head  of  the  great  firm  of  Grandins  &  Neyhart.  Elijah  Bishop  Grandin— named 
from  the  father  of  C.  E.  Bishop,  founder  of  the  Oil-City  Derrick— who  had  car- 
ried on  a  store  at  Hydetown  and  operated  at  Petroleum  Centre,  resumed  his 
residence  at  Tidioute  in  1867  and  associated  with  his  brother  and  brother-in-law, 
Adnah  Neyhart,  in  producing,  buying,  storing  and  transporting  petroleum. 
Mr.  Neyhart  and  Joshua  Pierce,  of  Philadelphia,  had  drilled  on  Cherry  Run,  on 
Dennis  Run  and  at  Triumph  and  engaged  largely  in  shipping  oil  to  the  coast. 
Pierce  &  Neyhart — J.  L.  Grandin  was  their  silent  partner — dissolved  in  1869. 
The  firm  of  Grandins  &  Neyhart,  organized  in  1868,  was  marvelously  successful. 
Its  high  standing  increased  confidence  in  the  stability  of  financial  and  commer- 
cial affairs  in  the  oil-regions.  The  brothers  established  the  Grandin  Bank  and 
Neyhart,  besides  handling  one-fourth  of  the  crude  produced  in  Pennsylvania, 
13 


i84 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


opened  a  commission-house  in  New  York  to  sell  refined,  under  the  skilled 
management  of  John  D.  Archbold,  now  vice-president  of  the  Standard  Oil- 
Company.  They  and  the  Fisher  Brothers  owned  the  Dennis  Run  and  Triumph 
pipe-lines  and  piped  the  oil  from  Fagundas,  where  they  drilled  a  hundred  pro- 
lific wells  and  were  the  largest  operators.  They  bought  properties  in  different 
portions  of  the  oil-fields,  extended  their  pipe-lines  to  Titusville  and  erected 
iron-tankage  at  Parker  and  Miller  Farm.  The  death  of  Mr.  Neyhart  terminated 
their  connection  with  oil-shipments. 

Owning  thousands  of  acres  in  Warren  and  Forest  counties,  the  Grandins 
were  heavily  interested  in  developments  at  Cherry  Grove,  Balltown  and  Cooper. 
As  those  sections  declined  they  gradually  withdrew  from  active  oil-operations, 
sold  their  pipe-lines  and  wound  up  their  bank.  J.  L.  Grandin  removed  to  Bos- 


ton and  E.  B.  to  Washington,  to  embark  in  new  enterprises  and  enjoy,  under 
most  favorable  conditions,  the  fruits  of  their  prosperous  career  at  Tidioute. 
Their  business  for  ten  years  has  been  chiefly  loaning  money,  farming  and  lum- 
bering in  the  west.  They  purchased  seventy-two-thousand  acres  in  the  Red 
River  Valley  of  Dakota — known  the  world  over  as  "the  Dalrymple  Farm" — 
sold  it  down  to  forty-thousand  and  in  1895  harvested  from  twenty-four-thousand 
acres  six-hundred-thousand  bushels  of  wheat,  oats  and  barley.  On  this  tract 
they  employ  hundreds  of  men  and  horses,  scores  of  ploughs  and  reapers  and 


A  BEE-LINE  FOR  THE  NORTH.  185 

steam-threshers  and  illustrate  how  to  farm  profitably  on  the  biggest  scale. 
With  Hunter  &  Cummings,  of  Tidioute,  and  J.  B.  White,  of  Kansas  City,  as 
partners,  they  organized  the  Missouri  Lumber  and  Mining  Company.  The 
company  owns  two-hundred-and-forty-thousand  acres  of  timber-land  in  Mis- 
souri and  cut  fifty-million  feet  of  lumber  last  year  in  its  vast  saw-mills  at  Gran- 
din,  Carter  county.  Far-seeing,  clear-headed,  of  unblemished  repute  and  lib- 
eral culture,  such  men  as  J.  L.  and  E.  B.  Grandin  reflect  honor  upon  humanity 
and  deserve  the  success  an  approving  conscience  and  the  popular  voice  com- 
mend heartily. 

Above  Tidioute  a  number  of  "farmers'  wells" — shallow  holes  sunk  by 
hand  and  soon  abandoned — flickered  and  collapsed.  On  the  islands  in  the 
river  small  wells  were  drilled,  most  of  which  the  great  flood  of  1865  destroyed. 
Opposite  the  town,  on  the  Economite  lands,  operations  began  in  1860.  Steam- 
power  was  used  for  the  first  time  in  drilling.  The  wells  ranged  from  five  bar- 
rels to  eighty,  at  one-hundred-and-fifty  feet.  They  belonged  to  the  Economites, 
a  German  society  that  enforced  celibacy  and  held  property  in  common.  About 
1820  the  association  founded  the  village  of  Harmony,  Butler  county,  having  an 
exclusive  colony  and  transacting  business  with  outsiders  through  the  medium 
of  two  trustees.  The  members  wore  a  plain  garb  and  were  distinguished  for 
morality,  simplicity,  industry  and  strict  religious  principles.  Leaving  Harmony, 
they  located  in  the  Wabash  Valley,  lost  many  adherents,  returned  to  Pennsyl- 
vania and  built  the  town  of  Economy,  in  Beaver  county,  fifteen  miles  below 
Pittsburg.  They  manufactured  silks  and  wine,  mined  coal  and  accumulated 
millions  of  dollars.  A  loan  to  William  Davidson,  owner  of  eight-thousand 
acres  in  Limestone  township,  Warren  county,  obliged  them  to  foreclose  the 
mortgage  and  bid  in  the  tract.  Their  notions  of  economy  applied  to  the  wells, 
which  they  numbered  alphabetically.  The  first,  A  well,  yielded  ten  barrels, 
B  pumped  fifty  and  C  flowed  seventy.  The  trustees,  R.  L.  Baker  and  Jacob 
Henrici,  erected  a  large  boarding-house  for  the  workmen,  whose  speech  and 
manners  were  regulated  by  printed  rules.  Pine  and  oak  covered  the  Davidson 
lands,  which  fronted  several  miles  on  the  Allegheny  and  stretched  far  back  into 
the  township.  Of  late  years  the  Economite  society  has  been  disintegrating, 
until  its  membership  has  shrunk  to  a  dozen  aged  men  and  women.  Litigation 
and  mismanagement  have  frittered  away  much  of  its  property.  It  seems  odd 
that  an  organization  holding  "all  things  in  common"  should,  by  the  perversity 
of  fate,  own  some  of  the  nicest  oil-territory  in  Warren,  Butler  and  Beaver  coun- 
ties. A  recent  strike  on  one  of  the  southern  farms  flows  sixty  barrels  an  hour. 
Natural  gas  lighted  and  heated  Harmony  and  petroleum  appears  bound  to  stick 
to  the  Economites  until  they  have  faded  into  oblivion. 

Below  the  Economite  tract  numerous  wells  strove  to  impoverish  the  first 
sand.  G.  I.  Stowe's,  drilled  in  1860,  pumped  eight  barrels  a  day  for  six  years. 
The  Hockenburg,  named  from  a  preacher  who  wrote  an  essay  on  oil,  averaged 
twelve  barrels  a  day  in  1861.  The  Enterprise  Mining  and  Boring  Company  of 
New  York  leased  fifteen  rods  square  on  the  Tipton  farm  to  sink  a  shaft  seven 
feet  by  twelve.  Bed-rock  was  reached  at  thirty  feet,  followed  by  ten  feet  of 
shale,  ten  of  gray  sand,  forty  of  slate  and  soap-rock  and  twenty  of  first  sand. 
The  shaft,  cribbed  with  six-inch  plank  to  the  bottom  of  the  first  sand,  tightly 
caulked  to  keep  out  water,  was  abandoned  at  one-hundred-and-sixty  feet,  a  gas 
explosion  killing  the  superintendent  and  wrecking  the  timbers.  Of  forty  wells 
on  the  Tipton  farm  in  1860-61  not  a  fragment  remained  in  1866. 

Tidioute's  laurel  wreath  was  Triumph  Hill,  the  highest  elevation  in  the 


1 86 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


neighborhood.  Wells  nine-hundred  feet  deep  pierced  sixty  feet  of  oil-bearing 
sand,  which  produced  steadily  for  years.  Grandins,  Fisher  Brothers,  M.  G. 
Gushing,  E.  E.  Clapp,  John  M.  Clapp  and  other  leading  operators  landed  boun- 
teous pumpers.  The  east  side  of  the  hill  was  a  forest  of  derricks,  crowded  like 
trees  in  a  grove.  Over  the  summit  and  down  the  west  side  the  sand  and  the 


VIEW    ON    EAST    SIDE    OF    TRIUMPH    HILL    IN    1874. 

development  extended.  For  five  years  Triumph  was  busy  and  prosperous, 
yielding  hundreds-of-thousands  of  barrels  of  oil  and  advancing  Tidioute  to  a 
town  of  five-thousand  population.  Five  churches,  the  finest  school-buildings  in 
the  county,  handsome  houses,  brick  blocks,  superior  hotels  and  large  stores 
greeted  the  eye  of  the  visitor.  The  Grandin  Block,  the  first  brick  structure, 
built  of  the  first  brick  made  in  Deerfield  township,  contained  an  elegant  opera- 
house.  Three  banks,  three  planing-mills,  two  foundries  and  three  machine- 
shops  flourished.  A  dozen  refineries  turned  out  merchantable  kerosene. 
Water-works  were  provided  and  an  iron  bridge  spanned  the  river.  Good 
order  was  maintained  and  Tidioute — still  a  tidy  village — played  second  fiddle 
to  no  town  in  Oildom  for  intelligence,  enterprise  and  all-round  attractiveness. 
The  tidal  wave  effervesced  at  intervals  clear  to  the  Colorado  district. 
Perched  on  a  hill  in  the  hemlock  woods,  Babylon  was  the  rendezvous  of  sports, 


VIEW    ON    WEST    SIDE    Ot 


strumpets  and  plug-uglies,  who  stole,  gambled,  caroused  and  did  their  best  to 
break  all  the  commandments  at  once.  Could  it  have  spoken,  what  tales  of 
horror  that  board-house  under  the  evergreen  tree  might  recount !  Hapless 
wretches  were  driven  to  desperation  and  fitted  for  the  infernal  regions.  Lust 


A   BEE-LINE  FOR    THE  NORTH.  187 

and  liquor  goaded  men  to  frenzy,  resulting  sometimes  in  homicide  or  suicide. 
In  an  affray  one  night  four  men  were  shot,  one  dying  in  an  hour  and  another  in 
six  weeks.  Hogan,  who  had  laughed  at  the  feeble  efforts  of  the  township-con- 
stable to  suppress  his  resort,  was  arrested,  tried  for  murder  and  acquitted  on 
the  plea  of  self-defence.  The  shot  that  killed  the  first  victim  was  supposed  to 
have  been  fired  by  "French  Kate,"  Hogan's  mistress.  She  had  led  the  demi- 
monde in  Washington  and  led  susceptible  congressmen  astray.  Ben  met  her 
at  Pithole,  where  he  landed  in  the  summer  of  1865  and  ran  a  variety-show  that 
would  make  the  vilest  on  the  Bowery  blush  to  the  roots  of  its  hair.  He  had 
been  a  prize-fighter  on  land,  a  pirate  at  sea,  a  bounty-jumper  and  blockade- 
runner  and  prided  himself  on  his  title  of  "the  Wickedest  Man  in  the  World." 
Sentenced  to  death  for  his  crimes  against  the  government,  President  Lincoln 
pardoned  him  and  he  joined  the  myriad  reckless  spirits  that  sought  fresh  adven- 
tures in  the  Pennsylvania  oil-fields.  In  a  few  months  the  Scripture  legend — 
''Babylon  has  fallen" — applied  to  the  malodorous  Warren  town.  The  tiger 
can  "change  his  spots" — by  moving  from  one  spot  to  another — and  so  could 
Hogan.  He  was  of  medium  height,  square-shouldered,  stout-limbed,  exceed- 
ingly muscular  and  trained  to  use  his  fists.  He  fought  Tom  Allen  at  Omaha, 
sported  at  Saratoga  and  in  1872  ran  "The  Floating  Palace  " — a  boat  laden  with 
harlots  and  whiskey — at  Parker.  The  weather  growing  too  cold  and  the  law 
too  hot  for  comfort,  he  opened  a  den  and  built  an  opera-house  at  Petrolia.  In 
"Hogan's  Castle  "  many  a  clever  young  man  learned  the  short-cut  to  disgrace 
and  perdition.  Now  and  then  a  frail  girl  met  a  sad  fate,  but  the  carnival  of 
debauchery  went  on  without  interruption.  Hogan  put  on  airs,  dressed  in  the 
loudest  style  and  would  have  been  the  burgess  had  not  the  election-board 
counted  him  out !  A  fearless  newspaper  forcing  him  to  leave  Petrolia,  Hogan 
went  east  to  engage  in  "the  sawdust  swindle,"  returned  to  the  oil-regions  in 
1875,  built  an  opera-house  at  Elk  City,  decamped  from  Bullion,  rooted  at  Tar- 
port  and  Bradford  and  departed  by  night  for  New  York.  Surfeited  with  revelry 
and  about  to  start  for  Paris  to  open  a  joint,  he  heard  music  at  a  hall  on  Broad- 
way and  sat  down  to  wait  for  the  show  to  begin.  Charles  Sawyer,  ' '  the  con- 
verted soak,"  appeared  shortly,  read  a  chapter  from  the  Bible  and  told  of  his 
rescue  from  the  gutter.  Ben  was  deeply  impressed,  signed  the  pledge  at  the 
close  of  the  service,  agonized  in  his  room  until  morning  and  on  his  knees 
implored  forgiveness.  How  surprised  the  angels  must  have  been  at  the  spec- 
tacle of  the  prodigal  in  this  attitude  !  After  a  fierce  struggle,  to  quote  his  own 
words,  "peace  filled  my  soul  chock-full  and  I  felt  awful  happy."  He  claimed 
to  be  converted  and  set  to  work  earnestly  to  learn  the  alphabet,  that  he  might 
read  the  Scriptures  and  be  an  evangelist.  He  married  "French  Kate/'  who 
also  professed  religion,  but  it  didn't  strike  in  very  deep  and  she  eloped  with  a 
tough.  Mr.  Moody  welcomed  Hogan  and  advised  him  to  traverse  the  country 
to  offset  as  far  as  possible  his  former  misdeeds.  Amid  the  scenes  of  his  grossest 
offenses  his  reception  varied.  High-toned  Christians,  who  would  not  touch  a 
down-trodden  wretch  with  a  ten-foot  pole,  turned  up  their  delicate  noses  and 
refused  to  countenance  "the  low  impostor."  They  forgot  that  he  sold  his 
jewelry  and  most  of  his  clothes,  lived  on  bread  and  water  and  endured  manifold 
privations  to  become  a  bearer  of  the  gospel-message.  Even  ministers  who  pro- 
claimed that  "the  blood  of  Christ  cleanses  from  all  sin  "  doubted  Hogan's 
salvation  and  showed  him  the  cold  shoulder  in  the  chilliest  orthodox  fashion. 
He  stuck  manfully  and  for  eighteen  years  has  labored  zealously  in  the  vineyard. 
Judging  from  his  struggles  and  triumphs,  is  it  too  much  to  believe  that  a  front 


i88  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

seat  and  a  golden  crown  are  reserved  for  the  reformed  pugilist,  felon,  robber, 
assassin  of  virtue  and  right  bower  of  Old  Nick  ?  Unlike  straddlers  in  politics 
and  piety,  who  want  to  go  to  Heaven  on  velvet  cushions  and  pneumatic  tires, 

"  He  doesn't  stand  on  one  foot  fust, 

An'  then  stand  on  the  other, 

An'  on  which  one  he  feels  the  wust 

He  couldn't  tell  you  nuther." 

The  expectation  of  an  extension  of  the  belt  northward  was  not  fulfilled 
immediately.  Wells  at  Irvineton,  on  the  Brokenstraw  and  tributary  runs,  failed 
to  find  the  coveted  fluid.  Captain  Dingley  drilled  two  wells  on  Sell's  Run, 
three  miles  east  of  Irvineton,  in  1873,  without  slitting  the  jugular.  A  test  well 
at  Warren,  near  the  mouth  of  Conewango  Creek,  bored  in  1864  and  burned  as 
pumping  was  about  to  begin,  had  fair  sand  and  a  mite  of  oil.  John  Bell's 
operations  in  1875  opened  an  amber  pool  up  the  creek  that  for  a  season  crowded 
the  hotels  three  deep  with  visitors.  They  bored  dozens  of  wells,  yet  the  pro- 
duction never  reached  one-thousand  barrels  and  in  four  months  the  patch  was 
cordoned  by  dry  holes  and  as  quiet  as  a  cemetery.  The  crowds  exhaled  like 
morning  dew.  Warren  is  a  pretty  town  of  four-thousand  population,  its  location 
and  natural  advantages  offering  rare  inducements  to  people  of  refinement  and 
enterprise.  Its  site  was  surveyed  in  1795  and  the  first  shipment  of  lumber  to 
Pittsburg  was  made  in  1801.  Incorporated  as  a  borough  in  1832,  railroad  com- 
munication with  Erie  was  secured  in  1859,  w>tri  Oil  City  in  1867  and  with  Brad- 
ford in  1881.  Many  of  the  private  residences  are  models  of  good  taste.  Mas- 
sive brick-blocks,  solvent  banks,  churches,  stores,  high-grade  schools,  shaded 
streets  and  modern  conveniences  evidence  its  substantial  prosperity.  Hon. 
Thomas  Struthers— he  built  sections  of  the  Philadelphia  &  Erie  and  the  Oil- 
Creek  railroads  and  established  big  iron-works 
— donated  a  splendid  brick  building  for  a  li- 
brary, opera-house  and  post-office.  His  grand- 
\  son,  who  inherited  his  millions  and  died  in  Feb- 
ruary of  1896,  was  a  mild  edition  of  "Coal-Oil 
Johnnie"  in  scattering  money.  Lumbering, 
the  principal  industry  for  three  generations,  en- 
riched the  community.  Col.  Lewis  F.  Watson 
represented  the  district  twice  in  Congress  and 
left  an  estate  of  four-millions,  amassed  in  lumber 
and  oil.  He  owned  most  of  the  township  bear- 
ing his  name.  Hon.  Charles  W.  Stone,  his  suc- 
cessor, ranks  with  the  foremost  members  of  the 
House  in  ability  and  influence.  A  Massachu- 
setts boy,  he  set  out  in  life  as  a  teacher,  came 
to  Warren  to  take  charge  of  the  academy,  was 

CHARLES   W.    STONE.  .  ,  ,.       ,    ,  , 

county-superintendent,  studied  law  and  rose  to 

eminence  at  the  bar.  He  was  elected  Lieutenant-Governor  of  the  State,  served 
as  Secretary  of  the  Commonwealth  and  would  be  Governor  of  Pennsylvania 
to-day  had  "the  foresight  of  the  Republicans  been  as  good  as  their  hindsight." 
He  has  profitable  oil-interests,  is  serving  his  third  term  in  Congress  and  has 
been  nominated  for  the  fourth.  Alike  fortunate  in  his  political  and  professional 
career,  his  social  relations,  his  business  connections  and  his  personal  friend- 
ships, Charles  W.  Stone  holds  a  place  in  public  esteem  few  men  are  privileged 
to  attain. 

At  Clarendon  and  Stoneham  hundreds  of  snug  wells  yielded  three-thou- 


A   BEE-LINE  FOR    THE  NORTH.  189 

sand  barrels  a  day  from  a  regular  sand  that  did  not  exhaust  readily.  South- 
ward the  Garfield  district  held  on  fairly  and  a  narrow-gauge  railroad  was  built 
to  Farnsworth.  The  VVardwell  pool,  at  Glade,  four  miles  east  of  Warren, 
fir-zed  after  the  manner  of  Cherry  Grove,  rich  in  buried  hopes  and  dissipated 
greenbacks.  P.  M.  Smith  and  Peter  Grace  drilled  the  first  well— a  sixty  bar- 
reler— close  to  the  ferry  in  July  of  1883.  Dry-holes  and  small  wells  alternated 
with  provoking  uncertainty  until  J.  A.  Gartland's  twelve-hundred-barrel  gusher 
on  the  Clark  farm,  in  May  of  1884,  inaugurated  a  panic  in  the  market  that  sent 
crude  down  to  fifty  cents.  The  same  day  the  Union  Oil-Company  finished  a 
four-hundred  barrel  spouter  and  May  ended  with  fifty-six  wells  producing  and  a 
score  of  dusters.  June  and  July  continued  the  refrain,  values  see-sawing  as 
reports  of  dry-holes  or  fifteen-hundred-barrel-strikes,  some  of  them  worked  as 
"mysteries,"  bamboozled  the  trade.  Wardwell's  production  ascended  to 
twelve-thousand  barrels  and  fell  by  the  dizziest  jumps  to  as  many  hundred, 
the  porous  rock  draining  with  the  speed  of  a  lightning-calculator.  Tiona 
developed  a  lasting  deposit  of  superior  oil.  Kane  has  a  tempting  streak,  in 
which  Thomas  B.  Simpson  and  other  Oil-City  parties  are  interested.  Gas  has 
been  found  at  Wilcox,  Johnsonburg  and  Ridgway,  Elk  county  taking  a  slick 
hand  in  the  game.  Kinzua,  four  miles  north-east  of  Wardwell,  revealed  no 
particular  cause  why  the  spirit  of  mortal  ought  to  be  proud.  Although  Forest 
and  Warren,  with  a  slice  of  Elk  thrown  in,  were  demoralizing  factors  in  1882-3-4, 
their  aggregate  output  would  be  only  a  light  luncheon  for  the  polar  bear  in 
McKean  county. 

The  United  States  Land-Company,  holding  a  quarter-million  acres  in 
McKean  and  adjoining  counties,  in  1837  sent  Col.  Levitt  C.  Little  from  New 
Hampshire  to  look  after  its  interests.  He  located  on  Tuna  Creek,  eight  miles 
from  the  southern  border  of  New  York  state.  The  Websters  arrived  in  1838, 
journeying  by  canoe  from  Olean.  Other  families  settled  in  the  valley,  founding 
the  hamlet  of  Littleton,  which  in  1858  adopted  the  name  of  Bradford  and  became 
a  borough  in  1872,  with  Peter  T.  Kennedy  as  burgess.  The  vast  forests  were 
divided  into  huge  blocks,  such  as  the  Bingham,  Borden,  Clark  &  Babcock, 
Kingsbury  and  Quintuple  tracts.  Lumber  was  rafted  to  distant  points  and 
thousands  of  hardy  woodmen  "shantied  "  in  rough  huts  each  winter.  They 
beguiled  the  long  evenings  singing  coarse  songs,  playing  cards,  imbibing  the 
vintage  of  Kentucky  or  New  England  from  a  black  jug  and  telling  stories  so 
bald  the  mules  drooped  their  ears  to  hide  their  blushes.  But  they  were  open- 
hearted,  sternly  honest,  sticklers  for  fair-play,  hard-working  and  admirable 
forerunners  of  the  approaching  civilization.  To  the  sturdy  blows  of  the  rugged 
chopper  and  raftsman  all  classes  are  indebted  for  fuel,  shelter  and  innumerable 
comforts.  Like  the  rafts  they  steered  to  Pittsburg  and  the  wild  beasts  they 
hunted,  most  of  these  brave  fellows  have  drifted  away  never  to  return. 

Six-hundred  inhabitants  dwelt  peacefully  at  Bradford  ten  years  after  the 
Pithole  bubble  had  been  blown  and  pricked.  The  locomotive  and  track  of  a 
branch  of  the  Erie  Railroad  had  supplanted  A.  W.  Newell's  rude  engine,  which 
transported  small  loads  to  and  from  Carrollton.  An  ancient  coach,  weather- 
beaten  and  worm-eaten,  sufficed  for  the  scanty  passenger-traffic  and  the  quiet 
borough  bade  fair  to  stay  in  the  old  rut  indefinitely.  The  collection  of  frames 
labeled  Tarport — a  suit  of  tar  and  feathers  presented  to  a  frisky  denizen  begot 
the  name — snuggled  on  a  muddy  road  a  mile  northward.  Seven  miles  farther, 
at  Limestone,  the  "spirits"  directed  Job  Moses  to  buy  ten-thousand  acres  of 
land.  He  bored  a  half-dozen  shallow  wells  in  1864,  getting  some  oil  and  gas. 


190  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

Jonathan  Watson  skirmished  two  miles  east  of  Limestone,  finding  slight  tinges 
of  greasiness.  A  mile  south-west  of  Moses  the  Crosby  well  was  dry.  Another 
mile  south  the  Olmsted  well,  on  the  Crooks  farm,  struck  a  vein  of  oil  at  nine- 
hundred  feet  and  flowed  twenty  barrels  on  July  fourteenth,  1875.  The  sand 
was  poor  and  dry-holes  south  and  west  augured  ill  for  the  territory.  Frederick 
Crocker  drilled  a  duster  early  in  1875  on  the 

j^^Q     ^fet.  Kingsbury  lands,  east    side    of  Tuna    Creek. 

He  had  grit  and  experience  and  leased  an  angu- 
lar piece  of  ground  formed  by  a  bend  of  the 
raj£i         creek  for  his  second    venture.     It  was  part  of 
the  Watkins  farm,  a  mile  above  Tarport.     A 
!      half-mile  south-west,  on  the  Hinchey  farm,  the 
Foster  Oil-Company  had  sunk  a  twenty-barrel 
well  in  1872,  which  somehow  passed  unnoticed. 
On  September  twenty-sixth,  1875,  from  a  shale 
and  slate  at  nine-hundred  feet,  the  Crocker  well 
*        flowed  one-hundred-and-seventy  barrels.     This 
opened  the  gay  ball  which  was  to  transmute  the 
Tuna  Valley  from  its  arcadian  simplicity  to  the 
intense  bustle  of  the  grandest  petroleum-region 
the  world  has  ever  known.     The  valley  soon 

FREDERICK    CROCKER.  .  ,        .  ...  , 

echoed  and  re-echoed  the  music  of  the  tool- 
dresser  and  rig-builder,  the  click  of  the  drill  and  the  vigorous  profanity  of  the 
imported  teamster.  Frederick  Crocker,  who  drilled  on  Oil  Creek  in  1860  and 
devised  the  valve  which  kept  the  Empire  well  alive,  had  won  another  victory 
and  the  great  Bradford  field  was  born.  He  lived  at  Titusville  fifteen  years, 
erected  the  home  afterwards  occupied  by  Dr.  W.  B.  Roberts,  sold  his  Bradford 
property,  operated  in  the  Washington  district  and  died  at  Idlewild  on  February 
twenty-second,  1895.  Mr.  Crocker  possessed  real  genius,  decision  and  the 
qualities  which  "from  the  nettle  danger  pluck  the  flower  success."  Active  to 
the  close  of  his  long  and  useful  eighty-three  years,  he  met  death  calmly  and 
was  laid  to  rest  in  the  cemetery  at  Titusville. 

Scarcely  had  the  Crocker  well  tanked  its  initial  spurt  ere  "the  fun  grew 
fast  and  furious."  Rigs  multiplied  like  rabbits  in  Australia.  Train-loads  of 
lively  delegates  from  every  nook  and  cranny  of  Oildom  crowded  the  streets, 
overran  the  hotels  and  taxed  the  commissary  of  the  village  to  the  utmost. 
Town-lots  sold  at  New- York  prices  and  buildings  spread  into  the  fields.  At 
B.  C.  Mitchell's  Bradford  House,  headquarters  of  the  oil-fraternity,  operators 
and  land-holders  met  and  drillers  "off" tour"  solaced  their  craving  for  "the 
good  things  of  this  life  "  playing  billiards  and  practising  at  the  hotel-bar.  Hun- 
dreds of  big  contracts  were  closed  in  the  second-story  room  where  Lewis 
Emery,  "Judge"  Johnson,  Dr.  Book  and  the  advance-guard  of  the  invading 
hosts  assembled.  Main  street  blamed  at  night  with  the  light  of  dram-shops  and 
the  gaieties  incidental  to  a  full-fledged  frontier-town.  Noisy  bands  appealed 
to  lovers  of  varieties  to  patronize  barnlike-theatres,  strains  of  syren  music 
floated  from  beer-gardens,  dance-halls  of  dubious  complexion  were  thronged 
and  gambling-dens  ran  unmolested.  The  free-and-easy  air  of  the  community, 
too  intent  chasing  oil  and  cash  to  bother  about  morality,  captivated  the  ordi- 
nary stranger  and  gained  "Bad  Bradford"  notoriety  as  a  combination  of  Pit- 
hole  and  Petroleum  Centre,  with  a  dash  of  Sodom  and  Pandemonium,  con- 
densed into  a  single  package.  In  February  of  1879  a  city-charter  was  granted 


A  BEE-LINE  FOR    THE  NORTH.  191 

and  James  Broder  was  elected  mayor.  Radical  reforms  were  not  instituted 
with  undue  haste,  to  jar  the  sensitive  feelings  of  the  incongruous  masses  gath- 
ered from  far  and  near.  Their  accommodating  nature  at  last  adapted  itself 
to  a  new  state  of  affairs  and  accepted  gracefully  the  restrictions  imposed  for  the 
general  welfare.  Checked  temporarily  by  the  Bullion  spasm  in  1876-7,  the 
influx  redoubled  as  the  lower  country  waned.  Fires  merely  consumed  frame- 
structures  to  hasten  the  advent  of  costly  brick-blocks.  Ten  churches,  schools, 
five  banks,  stores,  hotels,  three  newspapers,  street-cars,  miles  of  residences  and 
fifteen-thousand  of  the  liveliest  people  on  earth  attested  the  permanency  of 
Bradford's  boom.  Narrow-gauge  railroads  circled  the  hills,  traversed  spider- 
web  trestles  and  brought  tribute  to  the  city  from  the  outlying  districts.  The 
area  of  oil-territory  seemed  interminable.  It  reached  in  every  direction,  until 
from  sixteen-thousand  mouths  seventy-five  thousand  acres  poured  their  liquid 
treasure.  The  daily  production  waltzed  to  one-hundred-thousand  barrels ! 
Iron-tanks  were  built  by  the  thousand  to  store  the  surplus  crude.  Two,  three  or 
four-thousand-barrel  gushers  were  lacking,  but  wells  that  yielded  twenty-five  to 
two-hundred  littered  the  slopes  and  valleys.  The  field  was  a  marvel,  a  phe- 
nomenon, a  revelation.  Bradford  passed  the  mushroom  stage  safely  and  was 
not  snuffed  out  when  developments  receded  and  the  floaters  wandered  south 
in  quest  of  fresh  excitement.  To-day  it  is  a  thriving  railroad  and  manufactur- 
ing centre,  the  home  of  ten-thousand  intelligent,  independent,  go-ahead  citizens, 
proud  of  its  past,  pleased  with  its  present  and  confident  of  its  future. 

To  trace  operations  minutely  would  be  an  endless  task.  Crocker  sold  a 
half-interest  in  his  well  and  drilled  on  an  adjacent  farm.  Gillespie,  Buchanan 
&  Kelly  came  from  Fagundas  in  1874  and  sank  the  two  Fagundas  wells — 
twenty  and  twenty-five  barrels — a  half-mile  west  of  Crocker,  in  the  fall  and  win- 
ter. Butts  No.  i,  a  short  distance  north,  actually  flowed  sixty  barrels  in  Novem- 
ber of  1874.  Jackson  &  Walker's  No.  i,  on  the  Kennedy  farm,  north  edge  of 
town,  on  July  seventeenth,  1875,  flowed  twenty  barrels  at  eleven-hundred  feet. 
The  dark,  pebbly  sand,  the  best  tapped  in  McKean  up  to  that  date,  encour- 
aged the  belief  of  better  strata  down  the  Tuna.  On  December  first,  two  months 
after  Crocker's  strike,  the  yield  of  the  Bradford  district  was  two-hundred-and- 
ten  barrels.  The  Crocker. was  doing  fifty,  the  Olmsted  twenty-five,  the  Butts 
fifteen,  the  Jackson  &  Walker  twenty  and  all  others  from  one  to  six  apiece. 
The  oil,  dark-colored  and  forty-five  gravity,  was  loaded  on  Erie  cars  direct 
from  the  wells,  most  of  which  were  beside  the  tracks.  The  Union  Company 
finished  the  first  pipe-line  and  pumped  oil  to  Olean  the  last  week  of  November. 
Prentice,  Barbour  &  Co.  were  laying  a  line  through  the  district  and  1875  closed 
with  everything  ripe  for  the  millenium  these  glimmerings  foreshadowed. 

Lewis  Emery,  richly  dowered  with  Oil-Creek  experience  and  the  get-up- 
and-get  quality  that  forges  to  the  front,  was  an  early  arrival  at  Bradford.  He 
secured  the  Quintuple  tract  of  five-thousand  acres  and  drilled  a  test  well  on  the 
Tibbets  farm,  three  miles  south  of  town.  Its  success  confirmed  his  judgment 
of  the  territory  and  began  the  wonderful  Quintuple  development.  The  Quin- 
tuple rained  staying  wells  on  the  lucky,  plucky  graduate  from  Pioneer,  quickly 
placing  him  in  the  millionaire-class.  He  built  blocks  and  refineries,  opened  an 
immense  hardware-store,  constructed  pipe-lines,  established  a  daily-paper, 
served  two  terms  in  the  Senate  and  opposed  the  Standard  "tooth  and  toe-nail." 
Thoroughly  earnest,  he  champions  a  cause  with  unflinching  tenacity.  He  owns 
a  big  ranche  in  Dakota,  big  lumber-tracts  and  saw-mills  in  Kentucky,  a  big 
oil-production  and  a  big  share  in  the  United-States  Pipe-Line.  He  has  traveled 


I92 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


over  Europe,  inspected  the  Russian  oil-fields  and  gathered  in  his  private 
museum  the  rarest  collection  of  curiosities  and  objects  of  interest  in  the  state. 
Senator  Emery  is  a  staunch  friend,  a  fighter  who  "doesn't  know  when  he  is 
whipped,"  liberal,  progressive,  fluent  in  conversation  and  firm  in  his  convictions. 


Hon.  David  Kirk  sticks  faithfully  to  Emery  in  his  hard-sledding  to  array 
petroleumites  against  the  Standard.  He  manages  the  McCalmont  Oil-Com- 
pany, which  operated  briskly  in  the  Forest  pools,  at  Bradford  and  Richburg. 
Mr.  Kirk  is  a  rattling  speaker,  positive  in  his  sentiments  and  frank  in  express- 
ing his  views.  He  extols  Pennsylvania  petroleum,  backs  the  outside  pipe-lines 
and  is  an  influential  leader  of  the  Producers'  Association. 

Dr.  W.  P.  Book,  who  started  at  Plumer,  ran  big  hotels  at  Parker  and  Mil- 


A   BEE-LINE  FOR    THE  NORTH.  193 

lerstown  and  punched  a  hole  in  the  Butler  field  occasionally,  leased  nine  hun- 
dred acres  below  Bradford  in  the  summer  of  1875.  He  bored  two-hundred 
wells,  sold  the  whole  bundle  to  Captain  J.  T.  Jones  and  went  to  Washington 
Territory  with  eight-hundred-thousand  dollars  to  engage  in  lumbering  and 
banking.  Captain  Jones  landed  on  Oil  Creek  after  the  war,  in  which  he  was  a 
brave  soldier,  and  drilled  thirteen  dry-holes  at  Rouseville  !  Repulses  of  this 
stripe  would  wear  out  most  men,  but  the  Captain  had  enlisted  for  the  campaign 
and  proposed  to  stand  by  his  guns  to  the  last.  His  fourteenth  attempt — a  hun- 
dred-barreler  on  the  Shaw  farm— recouped  former  losses  and  inaugurated 
thirty  years  of  remarkable  prosperity.  Fortune  smiled  upon  him  in  the  Clarion 
field.  Pipe-lines,  oil-wells,  dealings  in  the  exchanges,  whatever  he  touched 
turned  into  gold.  Not  handicapped  by  timid  partners,  he  paddled  his  own 
canoe  and  became  the  largest  individual  operator  in  the  northern  region. 
Acquiring  tracts  that  proved  to  be  the  heart  of  the  Sistersville  field,  he  is  cred- 
ited with  rejecting  an  offer  last  year  of  five-million  dollars  for  his  West-Vir- 
ginia and  Pennsylvania  properties  !  From  thirteen  wells,  good  only  for  post- 
holes  if  they  could  be  dug  up  and  retailed  by  the  foot,  to  five-millions  in  cash 
was  a  pretty  stretch  onward  and  upward.  He  preferred  staying  in  the  harness 
to  the  obscurity  of  a  mere  coupon-clipper.  He  lives  at  Buffalo,  controls  his 
business,  enjoys  his  money,  remembers  his  old  friends  and  does  not  put  on 
airs  because  of  marching  very  near  the  head  of  the  oleaginous  procession. 

Theodore  Barnsdall  has  never  lagged  behind  since  he  entered  the  arena  in 
1860.     He  operated  on  Oil  Creek  and  has  been  a  factor  in  every  important 
district.    Marcus  Hulings,  reasoning  that  a  paying  belt  intersected  it  diagonally, 
secured  the  Clark  &  Babcock  tract  of  six-thousand  acres  on  Foster  Brook, 
north-east  of  Bradford.     Hundreds  of  fine  wells  verified  his  theory  and  added  a 
half-million  to  his  bank-account.     Sitting  beside  me  on  a  train  one  day  in  1878, 
Mr.  Hulings  refused  three-hundred-thousand  dollars,  offered  by  Marcus  Brown- 
son,  for  his  interest  in  the  property.     He  pro- 
jected the  narrow-gauge  railroad  from  Brad- 
ford to-Olean  and  a  bevy  of  oil-towns — Gill-  ^flj^telW 
mor,  Derrick  City,  Red  Rock  and  Bell's  Camp 
—budded  and  bloomed  along  the  route.     Fred- 
eric Prentice  built  pipe-lines  and  tanks,  leased 
a  half-township,  started  thirty  wells  in  a  week 
on  the  Melvin  farm  and  organized  the  Pro- 
ducers'   Consolidated    Land    and    Petroleum     ; 
Company,  big  in  name,  in  quality  and  capital. 
The    American  Oil- Company's  big  operations 
wafted  the  late  W.  A.  Pullman  a  million  and 
the  presidency  of  the  Seaboard  Bank  in  New 
York,  filled  Joseph  Seep's  stocking  and  sad- 
dled   a    hundred-thousand  dollars   on   James 
Amm.     The  Hazelwood  Oil-Company,  guided 

FREDERICK     BODEN. 

by  Bateman  Goe's  prudent  hand,  drilled  five- 
hundred  wells  and  counted  its  gains  in  columns  of  six  figures.  Frederick 
Boden— true-blue,  clear -grit,  sixteen  ounces  to  the  pound — forsook  Corry  to 
extract  a  stream  of  wealth  fi  om  the  Borden  lands,  six  miles  east  of  Tarport. 
Prompt,  square  and  manly,  he  merited  the  good-luck  that  rewarded  him  in 
Pennsylvania  and  followed  him  to  Ohio,  where  for  two  years  he  has  been  oper- 
ating extensively.  Boden's  wells  boosted  the  territory  east  and  north.  From 


i94  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

its  junction  with  the  Tuna  at  Tarport — Kendall  is  the  post-office — to  its  source 
off  in  the  hills,  Kendall  Creek  steamed  and  smoked.  Tarport  expanded  to  the 
proportions  of  a  borough.  Two  narrow-gauge  roads  linked  Bradford  and 
Eldred,  Sawyer  City,  Rew  City,  Coleville,  Rixford  and  Duke  Centre— oil- 
towns  in  all  the  term  implies— keeping  the  rails  from  rusting.  Other  narrow- 
gauges  diverged  to  Warren,  Mt.  Jewett  and  Smethport.  The  Erie  extended  its 
branch  south  and  the  Rochester  &  Pittsburg  crossed  the  Kinzua  gorge  over  the 
highest  railway  viaduct — three-hundred  feet — in  this  nation  of  tall  projects  and 
tall  achievements. 

Twenty-nine  years  ago  a  stout-hearted,  strong-limbed,  wiry  youth,  fresh 
from  the  Emerald  Isle,  asked  a  man  at  Petroleum  Centre  for  a  job.  Given  a 
pick  and  shovel,  he  graded  a  tank-bottom  deftly  and  swiftly.  He  dug,  pulled 
tubing,  drove  team  and  earned  money  doing  all  sorts  of  chores.  Reared  in 
poverty,  he  knew  the  value  of  a  dollar  and  saved  his  pennies.  To  him  Oildom, 
with  its  "oil-princes" — George  K.  Anderson,  Jonathan  Watson,  Dr.  M.  C. 
Egbert,  David  Yanney,  Sam  Woods,  Joel  Sherman  and  the  Phillips  Brothers 
were  in  their  glory — was  a  golden  dream.  He  learned  to  "run  engine,"  dress 
tools,  twist  the  temper-screw  and  handle  drilling  and  pumping-wells  expertly. 
Although  neither  a  prohibitionist  nor  a  prude,  he  never  permitted  mountain- 
dew,  giddy  divinities  in  petticoats  or  the  prevailing  follies  to  get  the  better  of 
him  in  his  inordinate  desire  for  riches.  Drop  by  drop  for  three  years  his  frugal 
store  increased  and  he  migrated  to  Parker  early  in  the  seventies.  Such  was 
the  young  man  who  "struck  his  gait"  in  the  northern  end  of  Armstrong 
county,  who  was  to  outshine  the  men  he  may  have  envied  on  Oil  Creek,  to 
scoop  the  biggest  prize  in  the  petroleum-lottery  and  weave  a  halo  of  glittering 
romance  around  the  name  of  John  McKeown. 

Working  an  interest  in  an  oil-well,  he  hit  a  paying  streak  and  joined  the 
pioneers  who  had  sinister  designs  on  Butler  county,  proverbial  for  "buckwheat- 
batter  ' '  and  ' '  soap-mines. ' '  At  Lawrenceburg,  a  suburb  of  Parker,  he  boarded 
with  a  comely  widow,  the  mother  of  two  bouncing  kids  and  owner  of  a  little 
cash.  He  married  the  landlady  and  five  boys  blessed  the  union  of  loyal  hearts. 
His  wife's  money  aided  him  to  develop  the  Widow  Nolan  farm,  east  of  the  coal- 
bank  near  Millerstown.  Regardless  of  Weller's  advice  to  "beware  of  vid- 
ders,"  he  wedded  one  and  from  another  obtained  the  lease  of  a  farm  on  which 
his  first  well  produced  one-hundred-and-fifty  barrels  a  day  for  a  year,  a  fortune 
in  itself.  This  was  the  beginning  of  McKeown's  giant  strides.  In  partnership 
with  William  Morrisey,  a  stalwart  fellow-countryman — dead  for  years — he 
drilled  at  Greece  City,  Modoc  and  on  the  Cross-Belt.  He  held  interests  with 
Parker  &  Thompson  and  James  Goldsboro,  played  a  lone  hand  at  Martinsburg, 
invested  in  the  Karns  Pipe-Line  and  avoided  speculation.  He  agreed  with 
Thomas  Hayes,  of  Fairview,  in  1876,  to  operate  in  the  Bradford  field.  Hayes 
went  ahead  to  grab  a  few  tracts  at  Rixford,  McKeown  remaining  to  dispose  of 
his  Butler  properties.  He  sold  every  well  and  every  inch  of  land  at  top  figures. 
No  slave  ever  worked  harder  or  longer  hours  than  he  had  done  to  gain  a  firm 
footing.  No  task  was  too  difficult,  no  fatigue  too  severe,  no  undertaking  too 
hazardous  to  be  met  and  overcome.  Avarice  steeled  his  heart  and  hardened 
his  muscles.  Wrapped  in  a  rubber-coat  and  wearing  the  slouch-hat  everybody 
recognized,  he  would  ride  his  powerful  bay-horse  knee-deep  in  mud  or  snow  at 
all  hours  of  the  night.  It  was  his  ambition  to  be  the  leading  oil-operator  of  the 
world.  While  putting  money  into  Baltimore  blocks,  bank-stocks  and  western 
ranches,  he  always  retained  enough  to  gobble  a  slice  of  seductive  oil  territory. 


A   BEE-LINE  FOR    THE  NORTH. 


195 


Plunging  into  the  northern  field  "horse,  foot  and  dragoons,"  he  bought  out 
Hayes,  who  returned  to  Fairview  with  a  snug  nest-egg,  and  captured  a  huge 
chunk  of  the  Bingham  lands.  Robert  Simpson,  agent  of  the  Bingham  estate, 
fancied  the  bold,  resolute  son  of  Erin  and  let  him  pick  what  he  wished  from  the 
fifty-thousand  acres  under  his  care.  McKeown  selected  many  juicy  tracts,  on 
which  he  drilled  up  a  large  production,  sold  portions  at  excessive  prices  and 
cleared  at  least  a  million  dollars  in  two  or  three  years  !  As  Bradford  declined 
he  turned  his  gaze  towards  the  Washington  district,  bought  a  thousand  acres  of 
land  and  at  the  height  of  the  excitement  had  ten-thousand  barrels  of  oil  a  day ! 
His  object  had  been  attained  and  John  McKeown  was  the  largest  oil-producer 
in  the  universe. 

Down  in  Washington,  as  in  Butler  and  McKean,  he  attended  personally  to 
his  wells,  hired  the  workmen,  negotiated  for  all  materials  and  managed  the 
smallest  details.  He  removed  his  family  to  the  county-seat  and  lived  in  a  plain, 
matter-of-fact  way.  It  had  been  his  intention  to  erect  a  forty-thousand-dollar 
house  and  reside  at  Jamestown,  N.  Y.  Ground  was  purchased  and  the  founda- 
tion laid.  The  local  papers  spoke  of  the  acquisition  he  would  be  to  the  town, 
one  suggesting  to  haul  him  into  politics  and  municipal  improvements,  and 
McKeown  resented  the  notoriety  by  pulling  up  stakes  and  locating  at  Washing- 
ton. It  often  amused  me  to  hear  him  denounce  the  papers  for  calling  him 
rich.  He  was  more  at  home  in  a  derrick  than  in  a  drawing-room.  The  din  of 
the  tools  boring  for  petroleum  was  sweeter  to  his  ears  than  "  Lohengrin  "  or 
"The  Blue  Danube."  Watching  oil  streaming  from  his  wells  delighted  his  eye 
more  than  a  Corot  or  a  Meissonier  in  a  gilt  frame.  For  claw-hammer  coats, 
tooth-pick  shoes  and  vulgar  show  he  had  no  earthly  use.  Democratic  in  his 
habits  and  speech,  he  heard  the  poor  man  as  patiently  as  the  banker  or  the 
schemer  with  a  "soft  snap."  Clothes  counted  for  nothing  in  his  judgment  of 
people.  He  enjoyed  the  hunt  for  riches  more  than  the  possession.  In  no  sense 
a  liberal  man,  sometimes  he  thawed  out  to  friends  who  got  on  the  sunny  side 
of  his  frosty  nature  and  wrote  checks  for  church  or  charity.  Hard  work  was 
his  diversion,  his  chief  happiness.  His  wells  and  lands  and  income  grew  to 
dimensions  it  would  have  strained  the  nerves  and  brains  of  a  half-dozen  men 
to  supervise.  He  had  mortgaged  his  robust  constitution  by  constant  exposure 
and  the  foreclosure  could  not  always  be  postponed.  Repeated  warnings  were 
unheeded  and  the  strong  man  broke  down  just  when  he  most  needed  the 
vitality  his  lavish  drafts  exhausted.  Eminent  physicians  hurried  from  Pitts- 
burg  and  Philadelphia  to  his  relief,  but  the  paper  had  gone  to  protest  and  on 
Sunday  forenoon,  February  eighth,  1891,  at  the  age  of  fifty-three,  John  Mc- 
Keown passed  into  eternity.  Father  Hendrich  administered  the  last  rites  to 
the  dying  man.  He  sank  into  a  comatose  state  and  his  death  was  painless. 
The  remains  were  interred  in  the  Catholic  cemetery  at  Lawrenceville,  in  pres- 
ence of  a  great  multitude  that  assembled  to  witness  the  curtain  fall  on  the  most 
eventful  life  in  the  oil-regions. 

Estimates  of  McKeown's  wealth  ranged  from  three-millions  to  ten.  A 
guess  midway  would  probably  be  near  the  mark.  When  asked  by  Dunn  or 
Bradstreet  how  he  should  be  rated,  his  invariable  answer  was  :  "I  pay  cash  for 
all  I  get."  O.  D.  Bleakley,  of  Franklin,  was  appointed  guardian  of  the  sons 
and  Hon.  J.  W.  Lee  is  Mrs.  McKeown's  legal  adviser.  The  oldest  boy  has 
married,  has  received  his  share  of  the  estate  and  is  spending  it  freely.  A 
younger  son  was  drowned  in  a  pond  at  the  school  to  which  his  mother  sent  the 
bright  lad.  Once  McKeown,  desiring  to  have  Dr.  Agnew's  candid  opinion  at 


196  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

the  lowest  cost,  put  on  his  poorest  garb  and  secured  a  rigid  examination  upon 
his  promise  to  pay  the  great  Philadelphia  practitioner  ten  dollars  "as  soon  as 
he  could  earn  the  money."  He  thanked  the  doctor,  returned  in  a  business- 
suit,  told  of  the  ruse  he  had  adopted  and  cemented  the  acquaintance  with  a 
check  for  one-hundred  dollars.  In  Baltimore  he  posed  as  a  hayseed  at  a 
forced  sale  of  property  the  mortgagors  calculated  to  bid  in  at  a  fraction  of  its 
value.  He  deposited  a  million  dollars  in  a  city-bank  and  appeared  at  the  sale 
in  the  old  suit  and  slouched  hat  he  had  packed  in  his  satchel  for  the  occasion. 
Stylish  bidders  at  first  ignored  the  seedy  fellow  whose  winks  to  the  auctioneer 
elevated  the  price  ten-thousand  dollars  a  wink.  One  of  them  hinted  to  the 
stranger  that  he  might  be  bidding  beyond  his  limit.  "I  guess  not,"  replied 
John,  "  I  pay  cash  for  what  I  get."  The  property  was  knocked  down  to  him 
for  about  six-hundred-thousand  dollars.  He  requested  the  attorney  to  tele- 
phone to  the  bank  whether  his  check  for  the  amount  would  be  honored. 
"Good  for  a  million!"  was  the  response.  Now  his  triumphs  and  his  spoils 
have  shrunk  to  the  little  measure  of  the  grave ! 

"  Through  the  weary  night  on  his  couch  he  lay 
With  the  life-tide  ebbing  fast  away. 
When  the  tide  goes  out  from  the  sea-girt  lands 
It  bears  strange  freight  from  the  gleaming  sands  : 
The  white-winged  ships,  which  long  may  wait 
For  the  foaming  wave  and  the  wind  that's  late ; 
The  treasures  cast  on  a  rock-bound  shore 
From  stranded  ships  that  shall  sail  no  more, 
And  hopes  that  follow  the  shining  seas— 
Oh  !  the  ocean  wide  shall  win  all  these. 
But  saddest  of  all  that  drift  to  the  sea 
Is  the  human  soul  to  eternity, 
Floating  away  from  a  silent  shore, 
Like  a  fated  ship,  to  return  no  more." 

The  Bradford  Oil-Company— J.  T.  Jones,  Wesley  Chambers,  L.  G.  Peck 
and  L.  F.  Freeman  were  the  principal  stockholders — owned  a  good  share  of 
the  land  on  which  Greater  Bradford  was  built  and  ten-thousand  acres  in  the 
northern  field.  The  company  drilled  three-hundred  wells  in  McKean  and  Alle- 
gany,  realized  fifty-thousand  dollars  from  city-lots  and  its  stock  rose  to  two- 
thousand  dollars  a  share.  In  1881  Captain  Jones  bought  out  his  copartners. 
The  Enterprise  Transit  Company,  managed  by  John  Brown,  achieved  reputa- 
tion and  currency.  The  McCalmont  Oil-Company — organized  during  the  Bul- 
lion phantom  by  David  Kirk,  I.  E.  Dean,  Tack  Brothers  and  F.  A.  Dilworth — 
humped  itself  in  the  middle  and  northern  fields,  sometimes  paying  three-hun- 
dred-thousand dollars  a  year  in  dividends.  Kirk  &  Dilworth  founded  Great 
Belt  City,  in  Butler  county,  cutting  up  a  farm  and  selling  hundreds  of  lots. 
"  Farmer"  Dean,  manager  of  the  company,  operated  in  the  lower  fields,  lived 
two  years  at  Richburg,  toured  the  country  to  preach  the  gospel  according  to 
the  Greenbackers  and  won  laurels  on  the  rostrum.  Frank  Tack — frank  and 
trustworthy — was  vice-president  of  the  New- York  Oil-Exchange  and  his  brother 
is  dead.  The  Emery  Oil-Company,  the  Quintuple,  Mitchell  &  Jones,  Whitney 
&  Wheeler,  Melvin  and  Fuller,  George  H.  Vanvleck,  George  V.  Forman,  John 
L.  McKinney  &  Co.,  Isaac  Willets  and  Peter  T.  Kennedy  were  shining  lights  in 
the  McKean-Allegany  firmament.  Kennedy  owned  the  saw-mill  when  Brad- 
ford was  a  lumber-camp  and  his  estate — he  died  at  fifty— inventoried  eleven- 
hundred-thousand  dollars.  Hundreds  of  small  operators  left  Bradford  happy 


A   BEE-LINE  FOR    THE  NORTH.  197 

as  men  should  be  with  as  much  money  as  their  wives  could  spend  ;  other  hun- 
dreds dumped  their  well-winnings  into  the  insatiable  maw  of  speculation. 

The  Bradford  field  was  young  when  Col.  John  J.  Carter,  of  Titusville,  paid 
sixty-thousand  dollars  for  the  Whipple  farm,  on  Kendall  Creek.  Friends 
shook  their  heads  over  the  purchase,  up  to  that  time  the  largest  by  a  private 
individual  in  the  district,  but  the  farm  produced  fifteen-hundred-thousand  bar- 
rels of  oil  and  demonstrated  the  wisdom  of  the  deed.  Other  properties  were 
developed  by  this  indefatigable  worker,  until  his  production  was  among  the 
largest  in  the  northern  region  and  he  could  have  sold  at  a  price  to  number  him 
with  the  millionaires.  Unani- 
mously chosen  President  of  the 
Bradford,  Bordell  &  Kinzua 
Railroad  Company,  he  com- 
pleted the  line  in  ninety  days 
from  the  issue  of  the  charter 
and  in  eighteen  months  re- 
turned the  stockholders  eighty 
per  cent,  in  dividends.  Its  su- 
perior management  and  heavy 
earnings  attracted  favorable 
attention  to  this  road  both  at 
home  and  abroad.  President 
Carter  displayed  signal  ability 
in  handling  the  property,  which 
his  intelligent  methods  saved 
to  its  owners,  while  every  other 
narrow-gauge  in  the  system  fell 
into  the  clutches  of  receivers 
or  sold  as  junk  to  meet  court- 
charges  for  costly  litigation. 

All  ' '  Old-Timers ' '  remem- 
ber the  ' '  Gentlemen' s  Furnish-  COL  JQHN  ^  CARTER 
ing-House  of  John  J.  Carter," 

the  finest  establishment  of  the  kind  west  of  New  York.  Young  Carter,  with 
a  splendid  military  record,  located  at  Titusville  in  the  summer  of  1865,  imme- 
diately after  being  mustered  out  of  the  service,  and  engaged  in  mercantile 
pursuits  ten  years.  Like  other  progressive  men,  he  took  interests  in  the  wild- 
cat ventures  that  made  Pithole,  Shamburg,  Petroleum  Centre  and  Pleasantville 
famous.  From  large  holdings  in  Venango,  Clarion  and  Forest  he  reaped  a 
rich  harvest.  One  tract  of  four-thousand  acres  in  Forest,  purchased  in  1886 
and  two-thirds  of  it  yet  undrilled,  he  expects  to  hand  down  to  his  children  as 
a  proof  of  their  father's  business-foresight.  He  scanned  the  petroleum-horizon 
around  Pittsburg  carefully  and  retained  his  investments  in  the  middle  and 
upper  fields.  Taylorstown  and  McDonald,  with  their  rivers  of  oil,  burst  forth 
with  the  fury  of  a  flood  and  disappeared.  Sistersville,  in  West  Virginia,  had 
given  the  trade  a  taste  of  its  hidden  treasures  from  a  few  scattered  wells. 
Much  salt-water,  little  oil  and  deep  drilling  discouraged  operators.  How  to 
produce  oil  at  a  profit,  with  such  quantities  of  water  to  be  pumped  out,  was  the 
problem  Col.  Carter  visited  the  scene,  comprehended  the  situation,  devised 
his  plans  and  bought  huge  blocks  of  the  choicest  territory  before  the  oil-trade 
thought  Sistersville  worth  noticing.  This  bold  stroke  added  to  the  value  of 


198  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

every  well  and  lease  in  West  Virginia,  inspired  the  faltering  with  courage  and 
rewarded  him  magnificently.  Advancing  prices  rendered  the  princely  yield  of 
his  scores  of  wells  immensely  profitable.  Purchases  based  on  fifty-cent  oil — 
the  trade  had  small  faith  in  the  outcome — he  sold  on  the  basis  of  dollar-fifty  oil. 
Col.  Carter  is  in  the  prime  of  vigorous  manhood,  ready  to  explore  new  fields 
and  surmount  new  obstacles.  He  occupies  a  beautiful  home,  has  a  superb 
library,  is  a  thorough  scholar  and  a  convincing  speaker.  His  recent  argument 
before  the  Ohio  Legislature,  in  opposition  to  the  proposed  iniquitous  tax  on 
crude-petroleum,  was  a  masterpiece  of  effective,  pungent,  unanswerable  logic. 
None  who  admire  a  brave,  manly,  generous  character  will  say  that  his  success 
is  undeserved 

The  Bradford  field  extended  to  the  north-east  part  of  McKean  and  into 
Allegany  county,  New  York.  In  1867  an  adventurous  operator  put  down  a 
well  in  Independence  township,  forty-five  miles  north-east  of  Bradford.  In 
1880  O.  P.  Taylor — dead  now— began  operations  in  Scio  township,  drilling  a 
half-dozen  wells,  two  of  which  had  a  little  oil.  On  May  thirtieth,  1881,  one 
was  finished  in  a  ravine  close  to  the  quiet  village  of  Richburg,  Wirt  township. 
It  started  at  thirty  barrels,  causing  much  excitement,  which  Samuel  Boyle's 
three-hundred-barreler  in  July  sent  up  to  fever-heat.  The  latter  flowed  a  dark 
oil,  heavier  than  the  usual  product,  but  this  made  no  difference  in  the  scramble 
for  leases.  Eighteen  months  sufficed  to  define  the  Allegany  field,  which  was 
confined  to  seven-thousand  acres.  Twenty-nine-hundred  wells  were  bored 
and  the  maximum  yield  of  the  district  was  nineteen-thousand  barrels.  Rich- 
burg  and  Bolivar,  both  old  villages,  quadrupled  their  size  in  three  months. 
Narrow-gauge  railroads  soon  connected  the  new  field  with  Olean,  Friendship 
and  Bradford.  The  territory  was  shallow  in  comparison  with  parts  of  McKean, 
where  eighteen-hundred  feet  was  not  an  uncommon  depth  for  wells.  Timber 
and  water  were  abundant,  good  roads  presented  a  pleasing  contrast  to  the 
unfathomable  mud  of  Clarion  and  Butler  and  the  country  was  decidedly  attrac- 
tive. Efforts  to  find  an  outlet  to  the  belt  failed  in  every  instance.  The  climax 
had  been  reached  and  a  gradual  decline  set  in.  Allegany  was  the  northern 
limit  of  remunerative  developments  in  the  United  States,  which  the  next  turn 
of  the  wheel  once  more  diverted  southward.  The  McCalmont  Oil-Company 
and  Phillips  Brothers  were  leaders  in  the  Richburg  field.  The  country  had 
been  settled  by  Seventh-day  Baptists,  whose  "Sunday  was  on  Saturday." 
Not  to  offend  these  devout  people  by  discriminating  in  favor  of  Sunday,  oper- 
ators "whipped  the  devil  around  the  stump"  by  drilling  and  pumping  their 
wells  seven  days  a  week ! 

Canada  has  oil-fields  of  considerable  importance.  The  largest  and  oldest 
is  in  Enniskillen  township,  Lambton  county,  a  dozen  miles  from  Port  Sarnia, 
at  the  foot  of  Lake  Huron.  Black  Creek,  a  small  tributary  of  the  Detroit 
river,  flows  through  this  township  and  for  many  years  its  waters  had  been 
coated  with  a  greasy  liquid  the  Indians  sold  as  a  specific  for  countless  diseases. 
The  precious  commodity  was  of  a  brown  color,  exceedingly  odorous,  unpleas- 
ant to  the  taste  and  burned  with  great  intensity.  In  1860  several  wells  were 
started,  the  projectors  believing  the  floating  oil  indicated  valuable  deposits 
within  easy  reach  of  the  surface.  James  Williams,  who  had  previously  gar- 
nered the  stuff  in  pits,  finished  the  first  well  that  yielded  oil  in  paying  quantity. 
Others  followed  in  close  succession,  but  months  passed  without  the  sensation 
of  a  genuine  spouter.  Late  in  the  summer  of  the  same  year  that  operations 
commenced,  John  Shaw,  a  poor  laborer,  managed  to  get  a  desirable  lease  on 


A  BEE-LINE  FOR  THE  NORTH.  199 

the  bank  of  the  creek.  He  built  a  cheap  rig,  provided  a  spring-pole  and 
"kicked  down"  a  well,  toiling  all  alone  at  his  weary  task  until  money  and 
credit  and  courage  were  exhausted.  Ragged,  hungry  and  barefooted,  one 
forenoon  he  was  refused  boots  and  provisions  by  the  village-merchant,  nor 
would  the  blacksmith  sharpen  his  drills  without  cash  down.  Reduced  to  the 
verge  of  despair,  he  went  back  to  his  derrick  with  a  heavy  heart,  ate  a  hard 
crust  for  dinner  and  decided  to  leave  for  the  United  States  next  morning  if  no 
signs  of  oil  were  discovered  that  afternoon.  He  let  down  the  tools  and  re- 
sumed his  painful  task.  Twenty  minutes  later  a  rush  of  gas  drove  the  tools 
high  in  the  air,  followed  the  next  instant  by  a  column  of  oil  that  rose  a  hundred 
feet !  The  roar  could  be  heard  a  mile  and  the  startled  populace  rushed  from 
the  neighboring  hamlet  to  see  the  unexpected  marvel.  Canada  boasted  its 
first  flowing-well  and  the  tidings  flew  like  wild-fire.  Before  dark  hundreds  of 
excited  spectators  visited  the  spot.  For  days  the  oil  gushed  unchecked,  filling 
a  natural  basin  an  acre  in  extent,  then  emptying  into  the  creek  and  discoloring 
the  waters  as  far  down  as  Lake  St.  Clair.  None  knew  how  to  regulate  its 
output  and  bring  the  flow  under  control.  Thus  it  remained  a  week,  when  a 
delegate  from  Pennsylvania  showed  the  owner  how  to  put  in  a  seed-bag  and 
save  the  product.  The  first  attempt  succeeded  and  thenceforth  the  oil  was 
cared  for  properly.  Opinions  differ  as  to  the  actual  production  of  this  novel 
strike,  although  the  best  judges  placed  it  at  five-thousand  barrels  a  day  for 
two  or  three  weeks  !  The  stream  flowed  incessantly  the  full  size  of  the  hole,  a 
strong  pressure  of  gas  forcing  it  out  with  wonderful  speed.  The  well  pro- 
duced generously  four  months,  when  it  "  stopped  for  keeps."  Persons  who 
visited  the  well  at  its  best  will  recall  the  surroundings.  A  pond  of  oil  large 
enough  for  a  respectable  regatta  lay  between  it  and  Black  Creek,  whose  greasy 
banks  for  miles  bore  traces  of  the  lavish  inundation  of  crude.  The  locality 
was  at  once  interesting  and  high-flavored  and  a  conspicuous  feature  was  Shaw 
himself.  Radiant  in  a  fresh  suit  of  store-clothes,  he  moved  about  with  the 
complacency  incident  to  a  green  ruralist  who  has  "struck  ile." 

One  of  the  persons  earliest  on  the  ground  after  the  well  began  to  flow  was 
the  storekeeper  who  had  refused  the  proprietor  a  pair  of  boots  that  morning. 
With  the  cringing  servility  of  a  petty  retailer  he  hurried  to  embrace  Shaw,  coup- 
ling this  outbreak  of  affection  with  the  assurance  that  everything  in  the  shop 
was  at  his  service.  It  is  gratifying  to  note  that  Shaw  had  the  spirit  to  rebuke 
this  puppyism.  Bringing  his  ample  foot  into  violent  contact  with  the  dealer's 
most  vital  part,  he  accompanied  a  heavy  kick  with  an  emphatic  command  to  go 
to  the  place  Heber  Newton  and  Pentecost  have  ruled  out.  Shaw  was  entirely 
uneducated  and  fell  a  ready  prey  to  sharpers  on  the  watch  for  easy  victims. 
Cargoes  of  oil  shipped  to  England  brought  small  returns  and  his  sudden  wealth 
slipped  away  in  short  order.  Ere  long  the  envied  possessor  of  the  big  well  was 
obliged  to  begin  life  anew.  For  a  few  years  he  struggled  along  as  an  itinerant 
photographer,  traveling  with  a  "  car"  and  earning  a  precarious  subsistence 
taking  "tin-types."  Death  closed  the  scene  in  1872,  the  luckless  pioneer  ex- 
piring at  Petrolea  in  absolute  want.  Thus  sadly  ended  another  illustration  of 
the  adverse  fortune  which  frequently  overtakes  men  whose  energy  and  grit 
confer  benefits  upon  mankind  that  surely  entitle  them  to  a  better  fate. 

As  might  be  imagined,  Shaw's  venture  gave  rise  to  operations  of  great  mag- 
nitude. Hosts  flocked  to  the  scene  in  quest  of  lands  and  developments  began 
on  an  extensive  scale.  Among  others  a  rig  was  built  and  a  well  drilled  without 
delay  as  close  to  the  Shaw  as  it  was  possible  to  place  the  timbers.  The  sand 
14 


200  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

was  soon  reached  by  the  aid  of  steam-power  and  once  more  the  oil  poured 
forth  enormously,  the  new  strike  proving  little  inferior  to  its  neighbor.  It  was 
named  the  Bradley,  in  honor  of  the  principal  owner,  E.  C.  Bradley,  afterwards 
a  leading  operator  in  Pennsylvania,  president  of  the  Empire  Gas-Company  and 
still  a  resident  of  Oildom.  The  yield  continued  large  for  a  number  of  months, 
then  ceased  entirely  and  both  wells  were  abandoned.  Of  the  hundreds  in  the 
vicinity  a  good  percentage  paid  nicely,  but  none  rivalled  the  initial  spouters. 
The  influx  of  restless  spirits  led  to  an  "oil-town,"  which  for  a  brief  space  pre- 
sented a  picture  of  activity  rarely  surpassed.  Oil  Springs,  as  the  mushroom  city 
was  fittingly  termed,  flourished  amazingly.  The  excessive  waste  of  oil  filled 
every  ditch  and  well,  rendering  the  water  unfit  for  use  and  compelling  the  citi- 
zens to  quench  their  thirst  with  artificial  drinks.  The  bulk  of  the  oil  was  con- 
veyed to  Mandaumin,  Wyoming  or  Port  Sarnia,  over  roads  of  horrible  bad- 
ness, giving  employment  to  an  army  of  teamsters.  A  sort  of  "mud  canal  " 
was  formed,  through  which  the  horses  dragged  small  loads  on  a  species  of  flat- 
boats,  while  the  drivers  walked  along  the  "tow-path"  on  either  side.  The 
mud  had  the  consistency  of  thin  batter  and  was  seldom  under  three  feet  deep. 
To  those  who  have  never  seen  this  unique  system  of  navigation  the  most 
graphic  description  would  fail  to  convey  an  adequate  idea  of  its  peculiar 
features.  Unlike  the  Pennsylvania  oil-fields,  the  petroleum-districts  of  Canada 
are  low  and  swampy,  a  circumstance  that  added  greatly  to  the  difficulty  of  mov- 
ing the  greasy  staple  during  the  wet  season.  Ultimately  roads  were  cut  through 
the  soft  morasses  and  railways  were  constructed,  although  not  before  Oil 
Springs  had  seen  its  best  days  and  begun  a  rapid  descent  on  the  down  grade. 
Salt-water  quickly  put  a  stop  to  many  wells,  the  production  declined  rapidly 
and  the  town  was  depopulated.  Operations  extended  towards  the  north-west, 
where  Petrolea,  which  is  yet  a  flourishing  place,  was  established  in  1864. 
Both  well,  twenty-six  miles  south  of  Oil  Springs,  had  a  short  career  and  light 
production.  Canadian  operators  were  slower  than  the  Yankees  of  the  period 
and  the  tireless  push  of  the  Americans  who  crowded  to  the  front  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  developments  around  Oil  Springs  was  a  revelation  to  the  quiet 
plodders  of  Enniskillen  and  adjacent  townships.  The  leading  refineries  are  at 
London,  fifty  miles  east  of  Wyoming  and  one  of  the  most  attractive  cities  in 
the  Dominion. 

The  Tidioute  belt,  varying  in  narrowness  from  a  few  rods  to  a  half-mile, 
was  one  of  the  most  satisfactory  ever  discovered.  When  lessees  fully  occupied 
the  flats  Captain  A.  J.  Thompson  drilled  a  two-hundred-barrel  well  on  the  point, 
at  the  junction  of  Dingley  and  Dennis  Runs.  Quickly  the  summit  was  scaled 
and  amid  drilling  wells,  pumping  wells,  oil-tanks  and  engine-houses  the  town 
of  Triumph  was  created.  Triumph  Hill  turned  out  as  much  money  to  the 
acre  as  any  spot  in  Oildom.  The  sand  was  the  thickest — often  ninety  to  one- 
hundred-and-ten  feet— and  the  purest  the  oil-region  afforded.  Some  of  the 
wells  pumped  twenty  years.  Salt-water  was  too  plentiful  for  comfort,  but  half- 
acre  plots  were  grabbed  at  one-half  royalty  and  five-hundred  dollars  bonus. 
Wells  jammed  so  closely  that  a  man  could  walk  from  Triumph  to  New  London 
and  Babylon  on  the  steam-boxes  connecting  them.  Percy  Shaw — he  built  the 
Shaw  House — had  a  "royal  flush"  on  Dennis  Run  that  netted  two-hundred- 
thousand  dollars.  From  an  investment  of  fifteen-thousand  dollars  E.  E.  and 
J.  M.  Clapp  cleared  a  half-million. 

"Spirits"  located  the  first  well  at  Stoneham  and  Cornen  Brothers'  gasser 
at  Clarendon  furnished  the  key  that  unlocked  Cherry  Grove.  Gas  was  piped 


A   BEE-LINE  FOR    THE  NORTH.  201 

from  the  C  jrnen  well  to  Warren  and  Jamestown.  Walter  Horton  was  the 
moving  spirit  in  the  Sheffield  field,  holding  interests  in  the  Darling  and  Blue 
Jay  wells  and  owning  forty-thousand  acres  of  land  in  Forest  county.  McGrew 
Brothers,  of  Pittsburg,  spent  many  thousands  seeking  a  pool  at  Garland.  Gran- 
din  &  Kelly's  operations  below  Balltown  exploded  the  theory  that  oil  would 
not  be  found  on  the  south  side  of  Tionesta  Creek.  Cherry  Grove  was  at  its 
apex  when,  in  July  of  1884,  with  Farnsworth  and  Garfield  boiling  over,  two 
wells  on  the  Thomas  farm,  a  mile  south-east  of  Richburg,  flowed  six-hundred 
barrels  apiece.  They  were  among  the  largest  in  the  Allegany  district,  but  a 
three-line  mention  in  the  Bradford  Era  was  all  the  notice  given  the  pair. 

To  the  owner  of  a  tract  near  "646,"  who  offered  to  sell  it  for  fifty-thousand 
dollars,  a  Bradford  operator  replied:  "I  would  take  it  at  your  figure  if  I 
thought  my  check  would  be  paid,  but  I'll  take  it  at  forty-five-thousand  whether 
the  check  is  paid  or  not !"  The  check  was  not  accepted. 

John  Shaw,  whose  gusher  brought  the  "gum-beds"  of  Enniskillen  into 
the  petroleum-column,  narrowly  escaped  anticipating  Drake  three  years. 
Shaw  removed  from  Massachusetts  to  Canada  in  1838  and  was  regarded  as  a 
visionary  schemer.  In  1856  he  sought  to  interest  his  neighbors  in  a  plan  to 
drill  a  well  through  the  rock  in  search  of  the  reservoir  that  supplied  Bear  Creek 
with  a  thick  scum  of  oil.  They  hooted  at  the  idea  and  proposed  to  send  Shaw 
to  the  asylum.  This  tabooed  the  subject  and  postponed  the  advent  of  petro- 
leum until  1859. 

Tack  Brothers  drilled  a  dry-hole  twenty-six-hundred  feet  in  Millstone  town- 
ship, Elk  county.  Grandin  &  Kelly  drilled  four-thousand  feet  in  Forest  county 
and  got  lots  of  geological  information,  but  no  oil. 

Get  off  the  train  at  Trunkeyville — a  station-house  and  water-tank — and 
climb  up  the  hill  towards  Fagundas.  After  walking  through  the  woods  a  mile 
an  opening  appears.  A  man  is  plowing.  The  soil  looks  too  poor  to  raise 
grasshoppers,  yet  that  man  during  the  oil-excitement  refused  an  offer  of  sixty- 
thousand  dollars  for  this  farm.  His  principal  reason  was  that  he  feared  a  suit- 
able house  into  which  to  move  his  family  could  not  be  obtained!  On  a  little 
farther  a  pair  of  old  bull-wheels,  lying  unused,  tells  that  the  once  productive 
Fagundas  pool  has  been  reached.  A  short  distance  ahead  on  an  eminence  is  a 
church.  This  is  South  Fagundas.  No  sound  save  the  crowing  of  a  chanticleer 
from  a  distant  farm-yard  breaks  the  silence.  The  merry  voices  heard  in  the 
seventies  are  no  longer  audible,  the  drill  and  pump  are  not  at  work,  the  dwell- 
ings, stores  and  hotels  have  disappeared.  The  deserted  church  stands  alone. 
A  few  landmarks  linger  at  Fagundas  proper.  There  is  one  store  and  no  place 
where  the  weary  traveler  can  quench  his  thirst.  The  nearest  resemblance  to  a 
drinking-place  is  a  boy  leaning  over  a  barrel  drinking  rain-water  while  another 
lad  holds  him  by  the  feet.  Fagundas  is  certainly  "dry."  The  stranger  is 
always  taken  to  the  Venture  well.  Its  appearance  differs  little  from  that  of 
hundreds  of  other  abandoned  wells.  The  conductor  and  the  casing  have  not 
been  removed.  Robert  W.  Pimm,  who  built  the  rig,  still  lives  at  Fagundas. 
He  will  be  remembered  by  many,  for  he  is  a  jovial  fellow  and  was  "one  of  the 
boys."  The  McQuade— the  biggest  in  the  field— the  Bird  and  the  Red  Walk- 
ing-beam were  noted  wells.  If  Dr.  Stillson  were  to  hunt  up  the  office  where 
he  extracted  teeth  "without  pain  "  he  would  find  the  building  used  as  a  poultry- 
house.  Men  went  to  Fagundas  poor  and  departed  with  sufficient  wealth  to  live 
in  luxury  the  rest  of  their  lives  ;  others  went  wealthy  and  lost  everything  in  a 
vain  search  for  the  greasy  fluid.  Passing  through  what  was  known  as  Gillespie 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


and  traversing  three  miles  of  a  lonely  section,  covered  with  scrub-oak  and 
small  pine,  Triumph  is  reached.  It  is  not  the  Triumph  oil-men  knew  twenty- 
five  years  ago,  when  it  had  four-thousand  population,  four  good  hotels,  two 
drug-stores,  four  hardware-stores,  a  half-dozen  groceries  and  many  other  places 
of  business.  No  other  oil-field  ever  held  so  many  derricks  upon  the  same  area. 
The  Clapp  farm  has  a  production  of  twelve  barrels  per  day.  Traces  of  the 
town  are  almost  completely  blotted  out.  The  pilgrim  traveling  over  the  hill 
would  never  suspect  that  a  rousing  oil-town  occupied  the  farm  on  which  an 
industrious  Swede  has  a  crop  of  oats.  Along  Babylon  hill,  once  dotted  with 
derricks  thickly  as  trees  in  the  forest,  nothing  remains  to  indicate  the  spot 
where  stood  the  ephemeral  town. 

Five  townships  six  miles  square — Independence,  Willing,  Alma,  Bolivar 
and  Genesee,  with  Andover,  Wellsville,  Scio,  Wirt  and  Clarksville  north — 
form  the  southern  border  of  Allegany  county,  New  York.  The  first  well  bored 
for  oil  in  the  county — the  Honeyoe — was  the  Wellsville  &  Alma  Oil-Company's 
duster  in  Independence  township,  drilled  eighteen-hundred  feet  in  September, 
1877.  Gas  at  five-hundred  feet  caught  fire  and  burned  the  rig  and  signs  of  oil 
were  found  at  one-thousand  feet.  The  second  was  O.  P.  Taylor's  Pikeville 
well,  Alma  township,  finished  in  November,  1878.  Taylor,  the  father  of  the 
Allegany  field,  decided  to  try  north  of  Alma  and  in  July  of  1879  completed 
the  Triangle  No.  i,  in  Scio  township,  the  first  in  Allegany  to  produce  oil.  It 
originated  the  Wellsville  excitement  and  first 
diverted  public  attention  from  Bradford.  Tri- 
angle No.  2,  drilled  early  in  1880,  pumped  twelve 
barrels  a  day.  S.  S.  Longabaugh,  of  Duke  Cen- 
tre, sank  a  dry-hole,  the  second  well  in  Scio, 
three  miles  north-east  of  Triangle  No.  i.  Ope- 
rations followed  rapidly.  Richburg  No.  i.Wirt 
township,  in  which  Taylor  enlisted  three  asso- 
ciates, responded  at  a  sixty-barrel  gait  in  May  of 
1881  to  a  huge  charge  of  glycerine.  Samuel 
Boyle,  who  had  struck  the  first  big  well  at  Sawyer 
City,  completed  the  second  well  at  Richburg  in 
June,  manipulated  it  as  a  "  mystery  "  and  torpe- 
doed it  on  July  thirteenth.  It  flowed  three-hun- 
dred barrels  of  blue-black  oil,  forty-two  gravity, 
from  fifty  feet  of  porous  sand  and  slate.  Tay- 
lor's exertions  and  perseverance  showed  indom- 
itable will,  bravery  and  pluck.  He  was  a  Virginian  by  birth,  a  Confederate 
soldier  and  a  cigar-manufacturer  at  Wellsville.  It  is  related  that  while  drilling 
his  first  Triangle  well  the  tools  needed  repairs  and  he  had  not  money  to  send 
them  to  Bradford.  His  Wellsville  acquaintances  seemed  amazingly  "short" 
when  he  attempted  a  loan.  His  wife  had  sold  her  watch  to  procure  food  and 
she  gave  him  the  cash.  The  tools  were  fixed,  the  well  was  completed  and  it 
started  Taylor  on  the  road  to  the  fortune  he  and  his  helpmeet  richly  earned. 
The  pioneer  died  in  the  fall  of  1883.  The  record  of  his  adventures,  trials  and 
tribulations  in  opening  a  new  oil-district  would  fill  a  volume.  He  was  pre- 
pared for  the  message:  "Child  of  Earth,  thy  labors  and  sorrows  are  done." 
The  bee-line  to  the  north  was  squarely  "  on  the  belt." 


OILY  OOZINGS. 

Kerosene  is  often  the  last  scene. 

The  ladies  —  God  bless  them  !  —  are  nothing  if  not  consistent  —  at  times.  It 
used  to  be  a  fad  with  Bradford  wives  to  keep  a  stuffed  owl  in  the  parlor  for 
ornament  and  a  stuffed  club  in  the  hall  for  the  night-owl's  benefit. 

The  Oil-Creek  girls  are  the  dandy  girls, 

For  their  kiss  is  most  intense  ; 
They've  got  a  grip  like  a  rotary-pump 

That  will  lift  you  over  the  fence. 

The  steel  of  a  rimmer  was  lost  in  a  drilling  well  on  Cherry  Run.  After 
fishing  for  it  for  a  long  time  the  well-owner,  becoming  discouraged,  offered  a  man 
one-thousand  dollars  to  take  it  out.  He  broomed  the  end  of  a  tough  block, 
ran  it  down  the  well  attached  to  the  tools  and  in  ten  minutes  had  the  steel  out. 

The  woman  who  eagerly  seized  the  oil-  can 
And  to  pour  kerosene  in  the  cook-stove  began, 
So  that  people  for  miles  to  quench  the  fire  ran, 
While  she  soar'd  aloft  like  a  flash  in  the  pan, 
Didn't  know  it  was  loaded. 

At  a  drilling  well  near  Rouseville  the  tools  were  lowered  on  Monday  morn- 
ing and,  after  running  a  full  screw,  were  drawn  minus  the  bit,  with  the  stem- 
box  greatly  enlarged.  After  fishing  several  days  for  it  the  drillers  were  greatly 
surprised  to  find  the  lost  bit  standing  in  the  slack-tub.  The  tools  had  been 
lowered  in  the  darkness  with  no  bit  on. 

An  Oil-City  tramp  on  the  pavement  drear 

Saw  something  that  seem'd  to  shine  ; 
He  pick'd  it  up  and  gave  a  big  cheer  — 
'Twas  a  nickel  bright,  the  price  of  a  beer  — 

And  shouted  "  The  world  is  mine  !" 


"Breathe  through  the  nostrils"  is  good  advice.  People  should  breathe 
through  the  nose  and  not  use  it  so  much  for  talking  and  singing  through.  Yet 
every  rule  has  exceptions.  A  pair  of  mules  hauled  oil  at  Petroleum  Centre  in 
the  flush  times  of  the  excitement.  The  mud  was  practically  bottomless.  A 
visitor  was  overheard  telling  a  friend  that  the  bodies  of  the  mules  sank  out  of 
sight  and  that  they  were  breathing  through  their  ears,  which  alone  projected 
above  the  ooze.  Petroleum  Centre  and  many  more  departed  oil-towns  suggest 

the  old  jingle: 

"  There  was  an  old  woman  lived  under  a  hill, 
If  she  hadn't  moved  she'd  be  there  still  ; 
But  she  moved  !" 

About  St.  Valentine's  Day  in  1866,  when  the  burning  of  the  Tremont  House 
led  to  the  discovery  of  oil  in  springs  and  wells,  was  a  hilarious  time  at  Pithole. 
Every  cellar  was  fairly  flooded  with  grease.  People  pumped  it  from  common 
pumps,  dipped  it  from  streams,  tasted  it  in  tea,  inhaled  it  from  coffee-pots  and 
were  afraid  to  carry  lights  at  night  lest  the  very  air  should  cause  explosion  and 
other  unhappiness.  It  became  a  serious  question  what  to  drink.  The  whiskey 
could  not  be  watered  —  there  was  no  water.  Dirty  shirts  could  not  be  washed  — 
the  very  rain  was  crude  oil.  Dirt  fastened  upon  the  damask  cheeks  of  Pithole 
damsels  and  found  an  abiding-place  in  the  whiskers  of  every  bronzed  fortune- 
hunter.  Water  commanded  an  enormous  price  and  intoxicating  beverages 
were  cheap,  since  they  could  scarcely  be  taken  in  the  raw.  The  editor  of  the 
Record,  a  strict  temperance  man,  was  obliged  to  travel  fourteen  miles  every 
morning  by  stone-boat  to  get  his  glass  of  water.  Stocks  of  oil-companies  were 
the  only  thing  in  the  community  thoroughly  watered.  Tramps,  hobos,  wan- 
dering vagrants  and  unwashed  disbelievers  that  "  cleanliness  is  next  to  Godli- 
ness "  pronounced  Pithole  a  terrestrial  paradise.  They  were  willing  to  reverse 
Muhlenburg's  sentiment  and  "live  alway  "  in  that  kind  of  dry  territory. 


X. 


ON  THE  SOUTHERN  TRAIL. 

DOWN  THE  ALLEGHENY — RENO,  SCKUBGRASS,  BULLION— CLARION  DISTRICT — ST. 
PETERSBURG,  ANTWERP,  EDENBURG— PARKER  TO  GREECE  CITY — BUTLER'S  RICH 
PASTURES — THE  CROSS-BELT — PETROLIA,  KARNS,  MILLERSTOWN — THORN-CBEEK 
GEYSERS— MCDONALD  MAMMOTHS— INVASION  OF  WASHINGTON— WEST  VIRGINIA 
PLAYS  THE  DEUCE— GENERAL  GLEANINGS. 


'  I'm  comin'  from  de  Souf,  Susanna  doant  yo  cry."— Negro  Melody. 
'  Let  us  battle  for  elbow-room."— James  Parish  Steele. 

'  We  must  take  the  current  when  it  serves,  or  lose  our  ventures." — Shakespeare. 
'  Peter  Oleum  came  down  like  a  wolf  on  the  fold."— Byron  Parodied. 
"  Liberal  as  noontide  speeds  the  ambient  ray 

And  fills  each  crevice  in  the  world  with  day."— Lytton. 

1  How  soon  our  new-born-light  attains  to  full-aged  noon." — Francis  Quarles. 
'  What  lavish  wealth  men  give  for  trifles  light  and  small." — IV.  S.  Hawkins. 
'Who,  grown  familiar  with  the  sky,  will  grope  henceforward  among  groundlings?" 

— Robert  Browning. 


OUTH  and  west  of  Oil  Creek  for  many 
miles  the  petroleum-star  shed  its  ef- 
fulgent luster.  Down  the  Allegheny 
adventurous  operators  groped  their 
way  patiently,  until  Clarion,  Arm- 
strong, Butler,  Washington  and  West 
Virginia  unlocked  their  splendid  store- 
houses at  the  bidding  of  the  drill. 
Aladdin's  wondrous  lamp,  Stalacta's 
wand  or  Ali  Babi's  magic  sesame  was 
not  so  grand  a  talisman  as  the  tools 
which  from  the  bowels  of  the  earth 
brought  forth  illimitable  spoil.  No 
need  of  fables  to  varnish  the  tales  of 
struggles  and  triumphs,  of  disappoint- 
ments and  successes,  of  weary  toil  and 
rich  reward  that  have  marked  the  oil- 
development  from  the  Drake  well  to 
the  latest  strike  in  Tyler  county.  Men  who  go  miles  in  advance  of  develop- 
ments to  seek  new  oil-fields  run  big  chances  of  failure.  They  understand  the 
risk  and  appreciate  the  cold  fact  that  heavy  loss  may  be  entailed.  But  "the 
game  is  worth  the  powder"  in  their  estimation  and  impossibility  is  not  the  sort 
of  ability  they  swear  by.  "  Our  doubts  are  traitors  and  make  us  lose  the  good 
we  oft  might  win  "  is  a  maxim  oil-operators  have  weighed  carefully.  The  man 

205 


•$T.GE9RGES 

VELLS  AND 
RESIDENCE, 

A.V.R.R. 


206 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


who  has  faith  to  attempt  something  is  a  man  of  power,  whether  he  hails  from 
Hong  Kong  or  Boston,  Johannesburg  or  Oil  City.  The  man  who  will  not 
improve  his  opportunity,  whether  seeking  salvation  or  petroleum,  is  a  sure 
loser.  His  stamina  is  as  fragile  as  a  fifty-cent  shirt  and  will  wear  out  quicker 
than  religion  that  is  used  for  a  cloak  only.  Muttering  long  prayers  without 
working  to  answer  them  is  not  the  way  to  angle  for  souls,  or  fish,  or  oil-wells. 
It  demands  nerve  and  vim  and  enterprise  to  stick  thousands  of  dollars  in  a  hole 
ten,  twenty,  fifty  or  "a  hundred  miles  from  anywhere,"  in  hope  of  opening  a 
fresh  vein  of  petroleum.  Luckily  men  possessing  these  qualities  have  not  been 
lacking  since  the  first  well  on  Oil  Creek  sent  forth  the  feeble  squirt  that  has 
grown  to  a  mighty  river.  Hence  prolific  territory,  far  from  being  scarce,  has 
sometimes  been  too  plentiful  for  the  financial  health  of  the  average  producer, 
who  found  it  hard  to  cipher  out  a  profit  selling  dollar-crude  at  forty  cents.  As 
old  fields  exhausted  new  ones  were  explored  in  every  direction,  those  south  of 
the  original  strike  presenting  a  very  respectable  figure  in  the  oil-panorama.  If 
" eternal  vigilance  is  the  price  of  liberty,"  eternal  hustling  is  the  price  of  oil- 
operations.  Maria  Seidenkovitch,  a 
fervid  Russian  anarchist,  who  would 
rather  hit  the  Czar  with  a  bomb  than 
hit  a  thousand-barrel  well,  has  written: 

"  There  is  no  standing-  still !     Even  as  I  pause 
The  steep  path  shifts  and  I  slip  back  apace  ; 
Movement  was  safety ;  by  the  journey's  laws 

No  help  is  given,  no  safe  abiding-place ; 
No  idling  in  the  pathway,  hard  and  slow — 
I  must  go  forward  or  must  backward  go !" 

Down  the  Allegheny  three  miles, 
on  a  gentle  slope  facing  bold  hills  across 
the  river,  is  the  remnant  of  Reno,  once 
a  busy,  attractive  town.  It  was  named 
from  Gen.  Jesse  L.  Reno,  who  rose  to 
higher  rank  than  any  other  of  the  he- 
roes Venango  "contributed  to  the 
GEN.  JESSE  L.  RENO.  death-roll  of  patriotism."  He  spent 

his  boyhood  at  Franklin,  was  gradu- 
ated from  West  Point  in  the  class  with  George  B.  McClellan  and  "  Stonewall " 
Jackson,  served  in  the  Mexican  war,  was  promoted  to  Major-General  and  fell 
at  the  battle  of  South  Mountain  in  1862.  The  Reno  Oil-Company,  organized 
in  1865  as  the  Reno  Oil  and  Land  Company,  owns  the  village-site  and  twelve- 
hundred  acres  of  adjacent  farms.  The  company  and  the  town  owed  their 
creation  to  the  master-mind  of  Hon.  C.  V.  Culver,  to  whose  rare  faculty  for 
developing  grand  enterprises  the  oil-regions  offered  an  inviting  field.  Visiting 
Venango  county  early  in  the  sixties,  a  canvass  of  the  district  convinced  him 
that  the  oil-industry,  then  an  infant  beginning  to  creep,  must  attain  giant  pro- 
portions. To  meet  the  need  of  increased  facilities  for  business,  he  conceived 
the  idea  of  a  system  of  banks  at  convenient  points  and  opened  the  first  at 
Franklin  in  1861.  Others  were  established  at  Oil  City,  Titusville  and  suitable 
trade-centres  until  the  combination  embraced  twenty  banks  and  banking- 
houses,  headed  by  the  great  office  of  Culver,  Penn  &  Co.  in  New  York.  All 
enjoyed  large  patronage  and  were  converted  into  corporate  banks.  The  spec- 
ulative mania,  unequaled  in  the  history  of  the  world,  that  swept  over  the  oil- 
regions  in  1864-5,  deluged  the  banks  with  applications  for  temporary  loans  to 


ON    THE  SOUTHERN   TRAIL.  207 

be  used  in  purchasing  lands  and  oil-interests.  Philadelphia  alone  had  nine- 
hundred  stock-companies.  New  York  was  a  close  second  and  over  seven-hun- 
dred-million dollars  were  capitalized — on  paper — for  petroleum  speculations  ! 
The  production  of  oil  was  a  new  and  unprecedented  business,  subject  to  no 
known  laws  and  constantly  overturning  theories  that  set  limits  to  its  expansion. 
There  was  no  telling  where  flowing-wells,  spouting  thousands  of  dollars  daily 
without  expense  to  the  owners,  might  be  encountered.  Stories  of  sudden  for- 
tunes, by  the  discovery  of  oil  on  lands  otherwise  valueless,  pressed  the  button 
and  the  glut  of  paper-currency  did  the  rest. 

Mr.  Culver  directed  the  management  and  employment  of  fifteen-million 
dollars  in  the  spring  of  1865  !  People  literally  begged  him  to  handle  their 
money,  elected  him  to  Congress  and  insisted  that  he  invest  their  cash  and 
bonds.  The  Reno  Oil-Company  included  men  of  the  highest  personal  and 
commercial  standing.  Preliminary  tests  satisfied  the  officers  of  the  company 
that  the  block  of  land  at  Reno  was  valuable  territory.  They  decided  to  ope- 
rate it,  to  improve  the  town  and  build  a  railroad  to  Pithole,  in  order  to  com- 
mand the  trade  of  Oil  Creek,  Cherry  Run  and  "the  Magic  City."  Oil  City 
opposed  the  railroad  strenuously,  refusing  a  right-of-way  and  compelling  the 
choice  of  a  circuitous  route,  with  difficult  grades  to  climb  and  ugly  ravines  to 
span.  At  length  a  consolidation  of  competing  interests  was  arranged,  to  be 
formally  ratified  on  March  twenty-ninth,  1866.  Meanwhile  rumors  affecting  the 
credit  of  the  Culver  banks  were  circulated.  Disastrous  floods,  the  close  of  the 
war  and  the  amazing  collapse  of  Pithole  had  checked  speculation  and  impaired 
confidence  in  oil-values.  Responsible  parties  wished  to  stock  the  Reno  Com- 
pany at  five-million  dollars  and  Mr.  Culver  was  in  Washington  completing  the 
railroad-negotiations  which,  in  one  week,  would  give  him  control  of  nearly  a 
million.  A  run  on  his  banks  was  started,  the  strain  could  not  be  borne  and  on 
March  twenty-seventh,  1866,  the  failure  of  Culver,  Penn  &  Co.  was  announced. 
The  assets  at  cost  largely  exceeded  the  liabilities  of  four-million  dollars,  but 
the  natural  result  of  the  suspension  was  to  discredit  everything  with  which  the 
firm  had  been  identified.  The  railroad-consolidation,  confessedly  advanta- 
geous to  all  concerned,  was  not  confirmed  and  Reno  stock  was  withheld  from 
the  market.  While  the  creditors  generally  co-operated  to  protect  the  assets  and 
adjust  matters  fairly,  a  few  defeated  measures  looking  to  a  safe  deliverance. 
These  short-sighted  individuals  sacrificed  properties,  instituted  harassing  prose- 
cutions and  precipitated  a  crisis  that  involved  tremendous  losses.  Many  a  man 
standing  on  his  brother's  neck  claims  to  be  looking  up  far  into  the  sky  watch- 
ing for  the  Lord  to  come  ! 

The  fabric  reared  with  infinite  pains  toppled,  pulling  down  others  in  its 
fall.  The  Reno,  Oil-Creek  &  Pithole  Railroad,  within  a  mile  of  completion, 
crumbled  into  ruin.  The  architect  of  the  splendid  plans  that  ten  days  of  grace 
would  have  carried  to  fruition  displayed  his  manly  fiber  in  the  dark  days  of 
adversity  and  he  has  been  amply  vindicated.  Instead  of  yielding  to  despair 
and  "letting  things  take  their  course,"  he  strove  to  realize  for  the  creditors 
every  dollar  that  could  be  saved  from  the  wreck.  Animated  by  a  lofty  motive, 
for  thirty  years  Mr.  Culver  has  labored  tirelessly  to  discharge  the  debts  of  the 
partnership.  No  spirit  could  be  braver,  no  life  more  unselfish,  no  line  of  action 
more  steadfastly  devoted  to  a  worthy  object.  He  had  bought  property  and 
sought  to  enhance  its  value,  but  he  had  never  gambled  in  stocks,  never  dealt 
in  shares  on  the  mere  hazard  of  a  rise  or  gone  outside  the  business — except  to 
help  customers  whose  necessities  appealed  to  his  sympathy — with  which  he  was 


2o8 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


intimately  connected.  Driven  to  the  wall  by  stress  of  circumstances  and  gen- 
eral distrust,  he  has  actually  paid  off  all  the  small  claims  and  multitudes  of 
large  ones  against  his  banks.  How  many  men,  with  no  legal  obligation  to 
enforce  their  payment,  would  toil  for  a  generation  to  meet  such  demands  ? 
Thistles  do  not  bear  figs  and  banana-vendors  are  not  the  only  persons  who 
should  be  judged  by  their  fruits.  It  is  a  good  thing  to  achieve  success  and  bet- 
ter still  to  deserve  it.  Gauged  by  the  standard  of  high  resolve,  earnest  purpose 
and  persistent  endeavor — by  what  he  has  tried  to  do  and  not  by  what  may  have 
been  said  of  him — Charles  Vernon  Culver  can  afford  to  accept  the  verdict  of 
his  peers  and  of  the  Omniscient  Judge,  who  "discerns  the.  thoughts  and 
intents  of  the  heart." 

"  I  will  go  on  then,  though  the  limbs  may  tire, 

And  though  the  path  be  doubtful  and  unseen  ; 
Better  with  the  last  effort  to  expire 

Than  lose  the  toil  and  struggle  that  have  been, 
And  have  the  morning  strength,  the  upward  strain, 
The  distance  conquered  in  the  end  made  vain." 

Reorganized  in  the  interest  of  Culver,  Penn  &  Co.'s  creditors,  the  Reno 
Company  developed  its  property  methodically.  No.  18  well,  finished  in  May  of 
1870,  pumped  two-hundred  barrels  and  caused  a  flutter  of  excitement.  Fifty 
others,  drilled  in  1870-1,  were  so  satisfactory  that  the  stockholders  might  have 
shouted  "Keno!"  The  company  declined  to  lease  and  very  few  dry-holes 
were  put  down  on  the  tract.  Gas  supplied  fuel  and  the  sand,  coarse  and 

pebbly,  produced  oil  of  superior  grav- 
ity at  five  to  six-hundred  feet.  Reno 
grew,  a  spacious  hotel  was  built,  stores 
prospered,  two  railroads  had  stations 
and  derricks  dotted  the  banks  of  the 
Allegheny.  The  company's  business 
was  conducted  admirably,  it  reaped 
liberal  profits  and  operated  in  Forest 
county.  Its  affairs  are  in  excellent 
shape  and  it  has  a  neat  production  to- 
day. Mr.  Culver  and  Hon.  Galusha 
A.  Grow  have  been  its  presidents  and 
Hon.  J.  H.  Osmer  is  now  the  chief 
officer.  Mr.  Osmer  is  a  leader  of  the 
Venango  bar  and  has  lived  at  Frank- 
lin thirty-one  years.  His  thorough 
knowledge  of  law,  sturdy  independ- 
ence, scorn  of  pettifogging  and  skill 
as  a  pleader  gained  him  an  immense 

J      H.    OSMER.  .  TT         ,  ,  ... 

practice.      He  has   been    retained   in 

nearly  all  the  most  important  cases  before  the  court  for  twenty-five  years  and 
appears  frequently  in  the  State  and  the  United-States  Supreme  Courts.  He 
is  a  logical  reasoner  and  brilliant  orator,  convincing  juries  and  audiences  by  his 
incisive  arguments.  He  served  in  Congress  with  distinguished  credit.  His 
two  sons  have  adopted  the  legal  profession  and  are  associated  with  their  father. 
A  man  of  positive  individuality  and  sterling  character,  a  friend  in  cloud  and 
sunshine,  a  deep  thinker  and  entertaining  talker  is  James  H.  Osmer. 

Cranberry  township,  a  regular  petroleum-huckleberry,  duplicated  the  Reno 
pool  at  Milton,  with  a  vigorous  offshoot  at  Bredinsburg  and  nibbles  lying 


. 


i 


ON  THE  SOUTHERN  TRAIL.  209 

around  loose.  Below  Franklin  the  second-sand  sandwich  and  Bully-Hill  suc- 
cesses were  special  features.  A  mile  up  East  Sandy  Creek— it  separates  Cran- 
berry and  Rockland — was  Gas  City,  on  a  toploftical  hill  twelve  miles  south  of 
Oil  City.  A  well  sunk  in  1864  had  heaps  of  gas,  which  caught  fire  and  burned 
seven  years.  E.  E.  Wightman  and  Patrick  Canning  drilled  five  good  wells  in 
1871  and  Gas  City  came  into  being.  Vendergrift  &  Forman  constructed  a  pipe- 
line and  telegraph  to  Oil  City.  Gas  fired  the  boilers,  lighted  the  streets,  heated 
the  dwellings  and  great  quantities  wasted.  The  pressure  could  be  run  up  to 
three-hundred  pounds  and  utilized  to  run  engines  in  place  of  steam,  were  it  not 
for  the  fine  grit  with  the  gas,  which  wore  out  the  cylinders.  Wells  that  supplied 
fuel  to  pump  themselves  seemed  very  similar  to  mills  that  furnished  their  own 
motive-power  and  grist  for  the  hoppers.  A  cow  that  gave  milk  and  provided 
food  for  herself  by  the  process  could  not  be  slicker.  Gas  City  vaporized  a 
year  or  two  and  flickered  out.  The  last  jet  has  been  extinguished  and  not  a 
glimmer  of  gas  or  symptom  of  wells  has  been  visible  for  many  years. 

Fifteen  of  the  first  sixteen  wells  at  Foster  gladdened  the  owners  by  yield- 
ing bountifully.  To  drill,  to  tube,  to  pump,  to  get  done-up  with  a  dry-hole, 
"aye,  there's  the  rub  "  that  tests  a  fellow's  mettle  and  changes  blithe  hope  to 
bleak  despair.  Foster  wells  were  not  of  that  complexion.  They  lined  the 
steep  cliff  that  resembles  an  Alpine  farm  tilted  on  end  to  drain  off,  the  derricks 
standing  like  sentries  on  the  watch  that  nobody  walked  away  with  the  romantic 
landscape.  Lovers  of  the  sterner  moods  of  nature  would  revel  in  the  rugged 
scenery,  which  discounts  the  overpraised  Hudson  and  must  have  fostered  sub- 
lime emotions  in  the  impassive  redmen.  Indian-God  Rock,  inscribed  with 
untranslatable  hieroglyphics,  presumably  tells  what  "Lo"  thought  of  the  sur- 
roundings. Six  miles  south  of  the  huge  rock,  which  somebody  proposed  to 
boat  to  Franklin  and  set  in  the  park  as  an  interesting  memento  of  the  aborigi- 
nes, was  "the  burning  well."  For  years  the  gas  blazed,  illuminating  the  hills 
and  keeping  a  plot  of  grass  constantly  fresh  and  green.  The  flood  in  1865 
overflowed  the  hole,  but  the  gas  burned  just  as  though  water  were  its  native 
element.  It  was  the  fad  for  sleighing  parties  to  visit  the  well,  dance  on  the 
sward  when  snow  lay  a  yard  deep  ten  rods  away  and  hold  outdoor  picnics  in 
January  and  February.  This  practically  realized  the  fancy  of  the  boy  who 
wished  winter  would  come  in  summer,  that  he  might  coast  on  the  Fourth  of 
July  in  shirt-sleeves  and  linen-pants.  Here  and  there  in  the  interior  of  Rock- 
land  township  morsels  of  oil  have  been  unearthed  and  small  wells  are  pump- 
ing to-day. 

C.  D.  Angell  leased  blocks  of  land  from  Foster  to  Scrubgrass  in  1870-71 
and  jabbed  them  with  holes  that  confirmed  his  "  belt  theory."  His  first  well — 
a  hundred-barreler — on  Belle  Island,  a  few  rods  below  the  station,  opened  the 
Scrubgrass  field.  On  the  Rockland  side  of  the  river  the  McMillan  and  99  wells 
headed  a  list  of  remunerative  producers.  Back  a  quarter-mile  the  territory 
was  tricky,  wells  that  showed  for  big  strikes  sometimes  proving  of  little  ac- 
count. A  town  toddled  into  existence.  Gregory — the  genial  host  joined  the 
heavenly  host  long  ago — had  a  hotel  at  which  trains  stopped  for  meals.  James 
Kennerdell  ran  a  general  store  and  the  post-office.  The  town  was  busy  and 
had  nothing  scrubby  except  the  name.  The  wells  retired  from  business,  the 
depot  burned  down,  the  people  vanished  and  Kennerdell  Station  was  estab- 
lished a  half-mile  north.  Wilson  Cross  continued  his  store  at  the  old  stand 
until  his  death  in  March,  1896.  Within  a  year  paying  wells  have  been  drilled 
near  the  station  and  two  miles  southward.  On  the  opposite  bank  Major  W.  T. 


210  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

Baum,  of  Franklin,  has  a  half-dozen  along  the  base  of  the  hill  that  net  him  a 
princely  return.  A  couple  of  miles  north-west,  in  Victory  township,  Conway 
Brothers,  of  Philadelphia,  recently  drilled  a  well  forty-two  hundred  feet.  The 
last  sixty  feet  were  sand  with  a  flavor  of  oil,  the  deepest  sand  and  petroleum 
recorded  up  to  the  present  time.  Careful  records  of  the  strata  and  tempera- 
ture were  taken.  Once  a  thermometer  slipped  from  Mr.  Conway's  hand  and 
tumbled  to  the  bottom  of  the  well,  the  greatest  drop  of  the  mercury  in  any  age 
or  clime. 

Sixty  farmers  combined  in  the  fall  of  1859  to  drill  the  first  well  in  Scrubgrass 
township,  on  the  Rhodabarger  tract.  They  rushed  it  like  sixty  six-hundred 
feet,  declined  to  pay  more  assessments,  kicked  over  the  dashboard  and  spilled 
the  whole  combination.  The  first  productive  well  was  Aaron  Kepler's,  drilled 
on  the  Russell  farm  in  1863,  and  John  Crawford's  farm  had  the  largest  of  the 
early  ventures.  On  the  Witherup  farm,  at  the  mouth  of  Scrubgrass  Creek, 
paying  wells  were  drilled  in  1867.  Considerable  skirmishing  was  done  at  inter- 
vals without  startling  results.  The  first  drilling  in  Clinton  township  was  on 
the  Kennerdell  property,  two  miles  west  of  the  Allegheny,  the  Big-Bend  Oil- 
Company  sinking  a  dry-hole  in  1864-5.  Jonathan  Watson  bored  two  in  1871, 
finding  traces  of  oil  in  a  thin  layer  of  sand.  The  Kennerdell  block  of  nine- 
hundred  acres  figured  as  the  scene  of  milling  operations  from  the  beginning  of 
the  century.  David  Phipps  — the  Phipps  families  are  still  among  the  most 
prominent  in  Venango  county — built  a  grist-mill  on  the  property  in  1812,  a 
saw-mill  and  a  woolen-factory,  operated  an  iron-furnace  a  mile  up  the  creek 
and  founded  a  natty  village.  Fire  destroyed  his  factory  and  Richard  Ken- 
nerdel  bought  the  place  in  1853.  He  built  a  woolen-mill  that  attained  national 
celebrity,  farmed  extensively,  conducted  a  large  store  and  for  thirty  years  was 
a  leading  business-man.  A  handsome  fortune,  derived  from  manufacturing 
and  oil-wells  on  his  lands,  and  the  respect  of  all  classes  rewarded  the  enter- 
prise, sagacity  and  hospitality  of  this  progressive  citizen.  The  factory  he 
reared  has  been  dismantled,  the  pretty  little  settlement  amid  the  romantic 
hills  of  Clinton  is  deserted  and  the  man  to  whom  both  owed  their  devel- 
opment rests  from  his  labors.  Mr.  Kennerdell  possessed  boundless  energy, 
decision  and  the  masterly  qualities  that  surmount  obstacles,  build  up  a  com- 
munity and  round  out  a  manly  character.  Cornen  Brothers  have  a  production 
on  the  Kennerdell  tract,  which  they  purchased  in  1892.  During  the  Bullion 
furore  a  bridge  was  built  at  Scrub-grass  and  a  railroad  to  Kennerdell  was  con- 
structed. Ice  carried  off  the  bridge  and  the  faithful  old  ferry  holds  the  fort 
as  in  the  days  of  John  A.  Canan  and  George  McCullough. 

Phillips  Brothers,  who  had  operated  largely  on  Oil  Creek  and  in  Butler 
county,  leased  thousands  of  acres  in  Clinton  and  drilled  a  number  of  dry-holes. 
Believing  a  rich  pool  existed  in  that  latitude,  they  were  not  deterred  by  re- 
verses that  would  have  stampeded  operators  of  less  experience.  On  August 
ninth,  1876,  John  Taylor  and  Robert  Cundle  finished  a  two-hundred-barrel 
spouter  on  the  George  W.  Gealy  farm,  two  miles  north  of  Kennerdell.  They 
sold  to  Phillips  Brothers,  who  were  drilling  on  adjacent  farms.  The  new  strike 
opened  the  Bullion  field,  toward  which  the  current  turned  forthwith.  H.  L. 
Taylor  and  John  Satterfield,  the  biggest  operators  in  Butler,  visited  the  Gealy 
well  and  offered  a  half-million  dollars  for  the  Phillips  interests  in  Clinton.  A 
hundred  oilmen  stood  watching  the  flow  that  August  morning.  The  parties 
consulted  briefly  and  Isaac  Phillips  invited  me  to  walk  with  him  a  few  rods. 
He  said:  "Taylor  &  Satterfield  wish  to  take  our  property  at  five-hundred- 


ON  THE  SOUTHERN  TRAIL.  211 

thousand  dollars.  This  is  a  good  deal  of  money,  but  we  have  declined  it.  We 
think  there  will  be  a  million  in  this  field  for  us  if  we  develop  it  ourselves." 
They  carried  out  this  programme  and  the  estimate  was  approximated  closely. 
The  Sutton,  Simcox  Taylor,  Henderson,  Davis,  Gealy,  Newton  and  Ber- 
ringer  farms  were  operated  rapidly.  Tack  Brothers  paid  ten-thousand  dollars 
to  Taylor  for  thirty  acres  and  Porter  Phipps  leased  fifteen  acres,  which  he  sold 
to  Emerson  &  Brownson,  whose  first  well  started  at  seven-hundred  barrels. 
Phillips  Brothers'  No.  3  well,  on  the  Gealy  farm,  was  a  four-hundred-barreler. 
In  January,  1877,  Frank  Nesbit's  No.  2,  Henderson  farm,  flowed  five-hundred 
barrels,  and  in  February  the  Galloway  began  at  two-hundred.  The  McCal- 
mont  Oil-Company's  Big  Medicine,  on  the  Newton  farm,  tipped  the  beam  at 
one-thousand  barrels  on  June  seventh.  Mitchell  &  Lee's  Big  Injun  flowed 
three -thousand  barrels  on  June  eighteenth,  the  biggest  yield  in  the  district. 


Ten  rods  away  a  galaxy  of  Franklinites  drilled  the  driest  kind  of  a  dry-hole. 
In  August  the  McCalmont  No.  31  and  the  Phillips  No.  7  gauged  a  plump  thou- 
sand apiece.  These  were  the  largest  wells  and  they  exhausted  speedily.  The 
oil  from  the  Gealy  No.  i  was  hauled  to  Scrubgrass  until  connections  could  be 
laid  to  the  United  Pipe-Lines.  The  Bullion  field,  in  which  a  few  skeleton- 
wells  produce  a  few  barrels  daily,  extended  seven  miles  in  length  and  three- 
eighths  of  a  mile  in  width.  Like  the  business-end  of  a  healthy  wasp,  "it  was 
little,  but — oh,  my  !"  It  swerved  the  tide  from  Bradford  and  ruled  the  petro- 
leum-roost eighteen  months.  Summit  City  on  the  Simcox  farm,  Berringer 
City  on  the  Berringer  farm,  and  Dean  City  on  the  McCalmont  farm,  flourished 
during  the  excitement.  The  first  house  at  Summit  was  built  on  December 
eighth,  1876.  In  June  of  1877  the  town  boasted  two-hundred  buildings  and  fif- 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


teen-hundred  population.  Abram  Myers,  the  last  resident,  left  in  April  of  1889. 
All  three  towns  have  "  faded  into  nothingness  "  and  of  the  five-hundred  wells 
producing  at  the  summit  of  Bullion's  short-lived  prosperity  not  a  dozen  survive. 
Westward  a  new  strip  was  opened  last  year  the  wells  on  several  farms  yielding 
their  owners  a  pleasant  income. 

Major  St.  George— the  kindly  old  man  sleeps  in  the  Franklin  cemetery- 
had  a  bunch  of  wells  and  lived  in  a  small  house  close  to  the  Allegheny- Valley 
track,  near  the  siding  in  Rockland  township  that  bears  his  name.  At  Rock- 
land  Station  a  stone  chimney,  a  landmark  for  many  years,  marked  the  early 

abode  of  Hon.  Elisha  W.  Davis,  who 
operated  at  Franklin,  was  speaker 
of  the  House  of  Representatives  two 
terms  and  spent  the  closing  years  of 
his  active  life  in  Philadelphia.  Em- 
lenton,  the  lively  town  at  the  south- 
eastern corner  of  Venango  county, 
was  a  thriving  place  prior  to  the  oil- 
development.  Wells  in  the  vicinity 
were  generally  small,  Ritchey  Run 
having  some  of  the  best.  This  ro- 
mantic stream,  south  of  the  town, 
borders  Clarion  county  for  a  mile  or 
two  from  its  mouth.  John  Kerr,  a 
squatter,  cleared  a  portion  of  the  for- 
est and  was  drowned  in  the  river, 
slipping  off  a  flat  rock  two  miles  be- 
low his  bit  of  land.  The  site  of  Em- 
lenton  was  surveyed  for  Joseph  B. 
Fox  and  Andrew  McCaslin.  Fox,  a 
rich  Quaker,  was  the  pioneer  settler 

and  founded  the  town  of  Foxburg,  four  miles  south  of  Emlenton,  the  interven- 
ing territory  forming  part  of  his  estate.  McCaslin  owned  the  land  above  the 
Valley  Hotel  and  the  public-school.  He  was  elected  sheriff  in  1832  and  built 
an  iron-furnace.  As  a  compliment  to  Mrs.  Fox — Miss  Hannah  Emlen — he 
named  the  hamlet  Emlenton.  Doctor  James  Growe  built  the  third  house  in 
the  settlement.  The  covered  wooden-bridge,  usually  supposed  to  have  been 
brought  over  in  the  Mayflower,  withstood  floods  and  ice-gorges  until  April 
of  1883.  John  Keating,  who  had  the  second  store,  built  a  furnace  near  St. 
Petersburg  and  held  a  thousand  acres  of  land.  Oil-producers  were  well  rep- 
resented in  the  growing  town,  which  has  been  the  home  of  Marcus  Hulings, 
L.  E.  Mallory,  D.  D.  Moriarty,  M.  C.  Treat  and  R.  W.  Porterfield.  James 
Bennett,  a  leader  in  business,  built  the  opera-house  and  the  flour-mills  and 
headed  the  company  that  built  the  Emlenton  &  Shippenville  Railroad,  which 
ran  to  Edenburg  at  the  height  of  the  Clarion  development.  Emlenton  is  sup- 
plied with  natural-gas  and  noted  for  good  schools,  good  hotels  and  get-up- 
and-get  citizens. 

Dr.  A.  W.  Crawford,  who  served  three  terms  in  the  Legislature,  was 
appointed  consul  to  Antwerp  by  President  Lincoln,  in  1861.  At  the  time  he 
reached  Antwerp  a  cheap  illuminant  was  unknown  on  the  continent.  Gas  was 
used  in  the  cities,  but  the  people  of  Antwerp  depended  mainly  upon  rape-seed 
oil.  Only  wealthy  people  could  afford  it  and  the  poorer  folks  went  to  bed  in  the 


ON   THE  SOUTHERN   TRAIL.  213 

dark.  From  Antwerp  to  Brussels  the  country  was  shrouded  in  gloom  at  night. 
Not  a  light  could  be  seen  outside  the  towns,  in  the  most  populous  section  on 
earth.  A  few  gallons  of  American  refined  had  appeared  in  Antwerp  previous 
to  Dr.  Crawford's  arrival.  It  was  regarded  as  an  object  of  curiosity.  A  lead- 
ing firm  inquired  about  this  new  American  product  and  Dr.  Crawford  was  the 
man  who  could  give  the  information.  He  was  from  the  very  part  of  the  coun- 
try where  the  new  illuminant  was  produced.  The  upshot  of  the  matter  was 
that  Dr.  Crawford  put  the  firm  in  communication  with  American  shippers, 
which  led  to  an  order  of  forty  barrels  by  Aug.  Schmitz  &  Son,  Antwerp  dealers. 
The  article  had  tremendous  prejudice  to  overcome,  but  the  exporters  suc- 
ceeded in  finally  disposing  of  their  stock.  It  yielded  them  a  net  return  of  forty 
francs.  The  oil  won  its  way  and  from  the  humble  beginning  of  forty  barrels 
in  1861,  the  following  year  witnessing  a  demand  for  fifteen-hundred-thousand 
gallons.  By  1863  it  had  come  largely  into  use  and  since  that  time  it  has  become 
a  staple  article  of  commerce.  Dr.  Crawford  served  as  consul  at  Antwerp  until 
1866,  when  he  returned  home  and  began  a  successful  career  as  an  oil-producer. 
It  was  fortunate  that  Col.  Drake  chanced  upon  the  shallowest  spot  in  the  oil- 
regions  where  petroleum  has  ever  been  found,  when  he  located  the  first  well, 
and  equally  lucky  that  a  practical  oilman  represented  the  United  States  at  Ant- 
werp in  1861.  Had  Drake  chanced  upon  a  dry-hole  and  some  other  man  been 
consul  at  Antwerp,  oil-developments  might  have  been  retarded  for  years. 

"  Oft  what  seems  a  trifle, 

A  mere  nothing  in  itself,  in  some  nice  situations 
Turns  the  scale  of  Fate  and  rules  important  actions." 

Fertig  &  Hammond  drilled  medium  wells  on  the  Fox  estate  of  twelve- 
hundred  acres,  near  Foxburg  Station,  in  1870-71.  They  established  a  bank  and 
operations  in  the  neighborhood  were  pressed  actively  by  the  Fox  heirs  and 
producers  from  the  upper  districts.  Foxburg  was  the  jumping-off  point  for 
pilgrims  to  the  Clarion  field,  which  Galey  No.  i  well,  on  Grass  Flats,  inaug- 
urated in  August,  1871.  Others  on  the  Flats,  ranging  from  thirty  to  eighty 
barrels,  boomed  Foxburg  and  speedily  advanced  St.  Petersburg,  three  miles 
inland,  from  a  sleepy  village  of  thirty  houses  to  a  busy  town  of  three-thousand 
population.  In  September  of  1871  Marcus  Hulings,  whose  great  specialty  was 
opening  new  fields,  finished  a  hundred-barrel  well  on  the  Ashbaugh  farm,  a 
mile  beyond  St.  Petersburg.  The  town  of  Antwerp  was  one  result.  The  first 
building,  erected  in  the  spring  of  1872,  in  sixty  days  had  the  company  of  four 
groceries,  three  hotels,  innumerable  saloons,  telegraph-office,  school-house 
and  two-hundred  dwellings.  Its  general  style  was  summed  up  by  the  victim 
of  a  poker-game  in  the  expressive  words  :  "If  you  want  to  get  a  smell  of 
brimstone  before  supper  go  to  Antwerp  !"  Fire  in  1873  wiped  it  off  the  face  of 
the  planet. 

Charles  H.  Cramer,  now  proprietor  of  a  hotel  in  Pittsburg,  left  the  Butler 
field  to  drill  the  Antwerp  well,  in  which  he  had  a  quarter-interest.  James  M. 
Lambing,  for  whom  he  had  been  drilling,  jokingly  remarked :  "When  you 
return  '  broke '  from  the  wildcat  well  on  the  Ashbaugh  farm  I  will  have  another 
job  for  you."  It  illustrates  the  ups  and  downs  of  the  oil-business  in  the 
seventies  to  note  that,  when  the  well  was  completed,  Lambing  had  met  with 
financial  reverses  and  Cramer  was  in  a  position  to  give  out  jobs  on  his  own 
hook.  Victor  Gretter  was  one  of  the  spectators  of  the  oil  flowing  over  the 
derrick.  The  waste  suggested  to  him  the  idea  of  the  oil-saver,  which  he 
patented.  This  strike  reduced  the  price  of  crude  a  dollar  a  barrel.  Antwerp 


214  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

would  have  been  more  important  but  for  its  nearness  to  St.  Petersburg,  which 
disastrous  fires  in  1872-3  could  not  prevent  from  ranking  with  the  best  towns  of 
Oildom.  Stages  from  Foxburg  were  crowded  until  the  narrow-gauge  railroad 
furnished  improved  facilities  for  travel.  Schools,  churches,  hotels,  newspapers, 
two  banks  and  an  opera-house  flourished.  The  Pickwick  Club  was  a  famous 
social  organization.  The  Collner,  Shoup,  Vensel,  Palmer  and  Ashbaugh  farms 
and  Grass  Flats  produced  three-thousand  barrels  a  day.  Oil  was  five  to  six 
dollars  and  business  strode  ahead  like  the  wearer  of  the  Seven-League  Boots. 
Now  the  erstwhile  busy  town  is  back  to  its  pristine  quietude  and  the  farms  that 
produced  oil  have  resumed  the  production  of  corn  and  grass. 

A  jolly  Dutchman  near  St.  Petersburg,  who  married  his  second  wife  soon 
after  the  funeral  of  the  first,  was  visited  with  a  two-hours'  serenade  in  token  of 
disapproval.  He  expostulated  pathetically  thus  :  ''I  say,  poys,  you  ought  to 
be  ashamed  of  myself  to  be  making  all  dish  noise  ven  der  vas  a  funeral  here 
purty  soon  not  long  ago."  This  dispersed  the  party  more  effectually  than  a 
bull-dog  and  a  revolver  could  have  done. 

A  girl  just  returned  to  St.  Petersburg  from  a  Boston  high-school  said,  upon 
seeing  the  new  fire-engine  at  work  :  "Who  would  evah  have  dweamed  such  a 
vewy  diminutive  looking  apawatus  would  hold  so  much  wattah  !" 

"Where  are  you  going?"  said  mirth-loving  Con.  O'Donnell  to  an  elderly 
man  in  a  white  cravat  whom  he  overtook  on  the  outskirts  of  Antwerp  and  pro- 
posed to  invite  to  ride  in  his  buggy.  "  I  am  going  to  heaven,  my  son.  I  have 
been  on  my  way  for  eighteen  years."  "Well,  good-bye,  old  fellow  !  If  you 
have  been  traveling  toward  heaven  for  eighteen  years  and  got  no  nearer  than 
Antwerp,  I  will  take  another  route." 

The  course  of  operations  extended  past  Keating  Furnace,  up  and  beyond 
Turkey  Run,  a  dozen  miles  from  the  mouth  of  the  Clarion  River.  Good  wells 
on  the  Ritts  and  Neeley  farms  originated  Richmond,  a  small  place  that  fizzled 
out  in  a  year.  The  Irwin  well,  a  mile  farther,  flowed  three-hundred  barrels 
in  September  of  1872.  The  gas  took  fire  and  burned  three  men  to  death. 
The  entire  ravine  and  contiguous  slopes  proved  desirable  territory,  although 
the  streak  rarely  exceeded  a  mile  in  breadth.  Turkey  City,  in  a  nice  expanse 
to  the  east  of  the  famous  Slicker  farm,  for  months  was  second  only  to  St. 
Petersburg  as  a  frontier  town.  It  had  four  stages  to  Foxburg,  a  post-office, 
daily  mail-service  and  two  passable  hotels.  George  Washington,  who  took  a 
hack  at  a  cherry-tree,  might  have  preferred  walking  to  the  drive  over  the 
rough,  cut-up  roads  that  led  to  and  from  Turkey  City.  The  wells  averaged 
eleven-hundred  feet,  with  excellent  sand  and  loads  of  gas  for  fuel.  Richard 
Owen  and  Alan  Cochran,  of  Rouseville,  opened  a  jack-pot  on  the  Johnson 
farm,  above  town.  Wells  lasted  for  years  and  this  nook  of  the  Clarion  district 
could  match  pennies  with  any  other  in  the  business  of  producing  oil. 

Captain  John  Kissinger,  a  pioneer  settler,  died  in  1880  at  the  age  of  eighty- 
five.  He  was  the  father  of  thirty-four  children,  nine  of  whom  perished  by  his 
dwelling  taking  fire  during  the  absence  of  the  parents  from  home.  His  second 
wife,  who  survived  him  ten  years,  weighed  three-hundred  pounds. 

Northward  two  miles  was  Dogtown,  beautifully  situated  in  the  midst  of  a 
rich  agricultural  section.  The  descendants  of  the  first  settlers  retain  the  char- 
acteristics of  their  German  ancestors.  Frugal,  honest  and  industrious,  they 
live  comfortably  in  their  narrow  sphere  and  save  their  gains.  The  Delo  farm, 
another  mile  north,  was  for  a  time  the  limit  of  developments.  True  to  his 
instincts  as  a  discoverer  of  new  territory,  Marcus  Hulings  went  six  miles  north- 


ON  THE  SOUTHERN   TRAIL.  215 

east  of  St.  Petersburg,  leased  B.  Delo's  farm  and  drilled  a  forty-barrel  well  in 
the  spring  of  1872.  Enormous  quantities  of  gas  were  found  in  the  second  sand. 
The  oil  was  piped  to  Oil  City.  A  half-mile  east,  on  the  Hummell  farm,  Salem 
township,  Lee  &  Plumer  struck  a  hundred-barreler  in  July  of  1872.  The  Hum- 
mell farm  had  been  occupied  for  sixty  years  by  a  venerable  Teuton,  whose 
rustic  son  of  fifty-five  summers  described  himself  as  "the  pishness  man  ov  the 
firm."  The  new  well,  twelve-hundred  feet  deep,  had  twenty-eight  feet  of  nice 
sand  and  considerable  gas.  Its  success  bore  fruit  speedily  in  the  shape  of  a 
"town  "  dubbed  Pickwick  by  Plumer,  who  belonged  to  the  redoubtable  Pick- 
wick Club  at  St.  Petersburg.  A  quarter-mile  ahead,  on  a  three-cornered  plot, 
Triangle  City  bloomed.  The  first  building  was  a  hotel  and  the  second  a  hard- 
ware store,  owned  by  Lavens  &  Evans.  Charles  Lavens  operated  largely  in  the 
Clarion  region  and  in  the  northern  field,  lived  at  Franklin  several  years  and 
removed  to  Bradford.  He  is  president  of  the  Bradford  Commercial  Bank  and 
a  tip-top  fellow  at  all  times  and  under  all  circumstances.  Evans  may  claim 
recognition  as  the  author,  in  the  muddled  days  of  shut-downs  and  suspensions 
in  1872,  of  the  world- famed  platform  of  the  Grass-Flats  producers  :  "  Resolved 
that  we  don't  care  a  damn  !"  The  three  tailors  of  Tooley  street,  who  issued 
a  manifesto  as  "We,  the  people  of  England,"  were  outclassed  by  Evans  and 
his  friends.  News  of  their  action  was  flashed  to  every  "council "  and  "union" 
in  the  oil-country,  with  more  stimulating  effect  than  a  whole  broadside  of  for- 
mal declarations.  Triangle,  Pickwick  and  Paris  City  have  passed  to  the  realm 
of  forgetfulness. 

Major  Henry  Wetter,  the  embodiment  of  honor  and  energy,  was  the 
largest  operator  in  the  district  until  swamped  by  the  low  price  of  oil.  Death 
overtook  him  while  struggling  against  heavy  odds  to  recuperate  his  health  and 
fortune.  How  sad  it  is  that  the  flower  must  die  before  the  fruit  can  bloom  ! 

Marcus  Hulings,  a  leader  in  the  world  of  petroleum,  was  born  near  Phil- 
ipsburg,  Clarion  county,  and  began  his  career  as  a  producer  in  1860.  For 
some  years  he  had  been  a  contractor  and  builder  and  he  turned  his  practical 
knowledge  of  mechanics  to  good  account.  His  earliest  oil-venture  was  a  well 
on  the  Allegheny  River  above  Oil  City,  for  which  he  refused  sixty-thousand 
dollars.  To  be  nearer  the  producing-fields,  he  removed  to  Emlenton  and 
resided  there  a  number  of  years.  The  Hulings  family  had  been  identified  with 
Venango  county  from  the  first  settlement,  one  of  them  establishing  a  ferry  at 
Franklin  a  century  ago.  Prior  to  that  date  the  family  owned  and  lived  on 
what  is  now  Duncan's  Island,  at  the  junction  of  the  Susquehanna  and  Juniata 
Rivers,  fifteen  miles  north-west  of  Harrisburg.  Marcus  was  a  pathfinder  in 
Forest  county  and  opened  the  Clarion  region.  He  leased  Clark  &  Babcock's 
six-thousand  acres  in  McKean  county  and  drilled  hundreds  of  paying  wells. 
Deciding  to  locate  at  Oil  City,  he  built  an  elegant  home  on  the  South  Side  and 
bought  a  delightful  place  in  Crawford  county  for  a  summer  residence.  His  lib- 
erality, enterprise  and  energy  seemed  inexhaustible.  He  donated  a  magnificent 
hall  to  Allegheny  College,  Meadville,  aided  churches  and  schools,  relieved  the 
poor  and  was  active  in  political  affairs.  Besides  his  vast  oil-interests  he  had 
mines  in  Arizona  and  California,  mills  on  the  Pacific  coast  and  huge  lumber- 
tracts  in  West  Virginia.  Self-poised  and  self-reliant,  daring  yet  prudent,  brave 
and  trustworthy,  he  was  one  of  the  grandest  representatives  of  the  petroleum- 
industry.  Neither  puffed  up  by  prosperity  nor  unduly  cast  down  by  adversity, 
he  met  obstacles  resolutely  and  accepted  results  manfully.  My  last  talk  with 
him  was  at  Pittsburg,  where  he  told  of  his  endeavor  to  organize  a  company  to 
15 


216 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


develop  silver-claims  in  Mexico.  He  had  grown  older  and  weaker,  but  the 
earnestness  of  youth  was  still  his  possession.  His  eyes  sparkled  and  his  face 
lightened  as  he  shook  my  hand  at  parting  and  said  :  "  You  will  hear  from  me 
soon.  If  this  company  can  be  organized  I  would  not  exchange  my  Mexican 
properties  for  the  wealth  of  the  Astors  !" 

He  died  in  a  few  weeks,  his  dream  unfulfilled.  Losses  in  the  west  had 
reduced  his  fortune  without  impairing  his  splendid  courage,  hope  and  patience. 
He  united  the  endurance  of  a  soldier  with  the  skill  of  a  commander.  Marcus 
Hulings  deserved  to  enjoy  a  winter  of  old  age  as  green  as  spring,  as  full  of 
blossoms  as  summer,  as  generous  as  autumn.  His  son,  Hon.  Willis  J.  Hulings, 


-  S?    $%&&baj& 


served  in  the  Legislature  three  terms.  He  introduced  the  bills  prohibiting 
railroad-discriminations  and  was  a  strong  debater  on  the  floor.  Senator  Quay 
favored  him  for  State  Treasurer  and  attempted  to  stampede  the  convention 
which  nominated  William  Livsey.  This  was  the  beginning  of  the  differences 
between  Quay  and  the  combine  which  culminated  in  the  rout  of  the  latter  and 
the  triumph  of  the  Beaver  statesman  in  1895-6.  Mr.  Hulings  lives  at  Oil  City, 
has  a  beautiful  home  and  is  colonel  of  the  Sixteenth  Regiment  of  the  National 
Guards.  He  practiced  law  in  1877-81,  then  devoted  his  attention  to  oil-opera- 
tions, to  mining  and  lumbering,  in  which  he  is  at  present  actively  engaged. 

John  Lee  drilled  his  first  well  on  the  Hoover  farm,  near  Franklin,  in  1860, 
and  he  is  operating  to-day  in  Clinton  and  Rockland  townships.  He  has  had 
his  share  of  storm  and  sunshine,  from  dusters  at  Nickelville  to  a  slice  of  the 
Big  Injun  at  Bullion,  in  the  shifting  panorama  of  oil-developments  for  thirty-six 


ON  THE  SOUTHERN   TRAIL. 


217 


years,  but  his  fortitude  and  manliness  never  flinched.  He  is  no  sour  dyspeptic, 
whose  conduct  depends  upon  what  he  eats  for  breakfast  and  who  cannot 
believe  the  world  is  O.  K.  if  he  drills  a  dry-hole  occasionally. 

Frederick  C.  Plumer  and  John  Lee,  partners  in  the  Clarion  and  Butler 
fields,  were  successful  operators.  Their  wells  on  the  Hummell  farm  netted 
handsome  returns.  By  a  piece  of  clever  strategy  they  secured  the  Diviner 
tract,  drilled  a  well  that  extended  the  territory  two  miles  south  of  Millerstown 
and  sold  out  for  ninety-thousand  dollars.  Plumer  quit  with  a  competence, 
purchased  his  former  hardware-store  at  Newcastle,  took  a  flyer  in  the  Bullion 
district  and  died  at  Franklin,  his  birthplace  and  boyhood  home,  in  1879. 
"Fred"  was  a  thorough  man  of  affairs,  prompt,  courteous,  affable  and  popu- 
lar. His  long  sickness  was  borne  cheerfully  and  he  faced  the  end — he  died  at 
thirty-one— without  repining.  His  wife  and  daughter  have  joined  him  in  the 
land  of  deathless  reunions. 

"  Over  the  river  !  . 

Sailing  on  waters  where  lotuses  smile, 

Passing  by  many  a  tropical  isle, 

Sighting  savannas  there  mile  upon  mile, 
Over  the  river ! 

Music  forever  and  beauty  for  aye. 

Sunlight  unending — the  sunlight  and  day, 

Never  a  farewell  to  weep  on  the  way, 

Over  the  river!" 

East,  north  and  west  the  area  of  prolmc  territory  widened.  Wells  on  the 
Young  farm  started  a  jaunty  development  at  Jefferson  Furnace.  Once  the 
scene  of  activity  in  iron-manufacture,  the  old  furnace  had  been  neglected  for 
three  decades.  Oil  awakened  the  spot  from  its  Rip-Van-Winkle  slumber.  A 
narrow-gauge  railroad  crossed  Bea- 
ver Creek  on  a  dizzy  trestle,  which 
afforded  an  enticing  view  of  derricks, 
streams,  hills,  dales,  cleared  farms 
and  wooded  slopes.  The  wells  have 
pumped  out,  the  railroad  has  been 
switched  off  and  the  stout  furnace 
stands  again  in  its  solitary  dignity. 
James  M.  Guffey,  J.  T.  Jones,  Wesley 
Chambers  and  other  live  operators 
kept  branching  out  until  Beaver 
City,  Mongtown,  Mertina,  Edenburg, 
Knox,  Elk  City,  Fern  City  and  Jeru- 
salem, with  Cogley  as  a  supplement, 
were  the  centers  of  a  production  that 
aggregated  ten-thousand  barrels  a 
day.  The  St.  Lawrence  well,  on  the 
Bowers  farm,  a  mile  north  of  Eden- 
burg,  was  finished  in  June  of  1872 
and  directed  attention  to  Elk  town- 
ship. For  two  years  it  pumped  sixty- 
nine  barrels  a  day,  six  days  each  week,  the  owners  shutting  it  down  on  Sunday. 
Previously  Captain  Hasson,  of  Oil  City,  and  R.  Richardson,  then  of  Tarr  Farm 
and  now  of  Franklin,  had  drilled  in  the  vicinity.  Ten  dusters  north  of  the 
Bowers  farm  augured  poorly  for  the  St.  Lawrence.  It  disappointed  the  prophets 
of  evil  by  striking  a  capital  sand  and  producing  with  a  regularity  surpassed 


BEAVER   CREEK    AT   JEFFERSON   FURNACE. 


218  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE  OIL. 

only  by  one  well  on  Cherry  Run.  It  was  not  "a  lovely  toy,  most  fiercely 
sought,  that  lost  its  charm  by  being  caught." 

The  St.  Lawrence  jumped  the  northern  end  of  the  Clarion  district  to  the 
front.  Hundreds  of  wells  ushered  in  new  towns.  Knox,  on  the  Bowers  farm, 
attained  a  post-office,  a  hardware  store  and  a  dozen  dwellings,  its  proximity 
to  Edenburg  preventing  larger  growth.  The  cross-roads  collection  of  five- 
houses  and  a  store  known  as  Edenburg  progressed  immensely.  John  Men- 
denhallandj.  I.  Best's  farm-houses,  'Squire  Kribbs's  country-store  and  justice- 
mill,  a  blacksmith-shop  and  three  dwellings  constituted  the  place  at  the  date  of 
the  St.  Lawrence  advent.  The  nearest  hotel — the  Berlin  House— was  three 
miles  northward.  In  six  months  the  quiet  village  became  a  busy,  hustling, 
prosperous  town  of  twenty-five  hundred  population.  It  had  fine  hotels,  fine 
stores,  banks  and  people  whom  a  destructive  fire— it  eliminated  two-thirds  of 
the  buildings  in  one  night — could  not  "  send  to  the  bench."  When  the  flames 
had  been  subdued,  a  crowd  of  sufferers  gathered  at  two  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
sang  "Home,  Sweet  Home,"  and  at  seven  were  clearing  away  the  embers  to 
rebuild.  Narrow-gauge  railroads  were  built  and  the  folks  didn't  scare  at  the 
cars.  Elk  City  flung  its  antlers  to  the  breeze  two  miles  east.  Isaac  N.  Patter- 
son—he is  president  of  the  Franklin  Savings  Bank  and  a  big  operator  in  Indi- 
ana—had a  creamy  patch  on  the  Kaiser  farm.  Jerusalem's  first  arrival— Guf- 
fey's  wells  created  it — was  a  Clarion  delegate  with  a  tent  and  a  cargo  of  liquids. 
He  dealt  the  drink  over  a  rough  board,  improvised  as  a  counter,  so  briskly  that 
his  receipts  in  two  days  footed  up  seven-hundred  dollars.  He  had  no  license, 
an  officer  got  on  the  trail  and  the  vendor  decamped.  He  is  now  advance- 
agent  of  a  popular  show,  wears  diamonds  the  size  of  walnuts  and  tells  hosts  of 
oil -region  stories.  The  Clarion  field  was  not  inflamed  by  enormous  gushers, 
but  the  wells  averaged  nicely  and  possessed  the  cardinal  virtue  of  enduring 
year  after  year.  It  is  Old  Sol,  steady  and  persevering,  and  not  the  flashing 
meteor,  "a  moment  here,  then  gone  forever,"  that  lights  and  heats  the  earth 
and  is  the  fellow  to  bank  upon. 

An  Edenburg  mother  fed  her  year-old  baby  on  sliced  cucumbers  and  milk, 
and  then  desired  the  prayers  of  the  church  "because  the  Lord  took  away  her 
darling."  "  How  is  the  baby?"  anxiously  inquired  one  lady  of  another  at 
Beaver  City.  "  Oh,  baby  died  last  week,  I  thank  you, "  was  the  equivocal  reply. 

Some  of  the  oilmen  were  liberally  endowed  with  the  devotional  sentiment. 
When  the  news  of  a  blazing  tank  of  oil  at  Mertina  reached  Edenburg,  a  jolly 
operator  telegraphed  the  fact  to  Oil  City,  with  the  addendum:  "  Everything  has 
gone  hell  ward."  A  half-hour  later  came  his  second  dispatch:  "The  oil  is 
blazing,  with  big  flames  going  heavenward."  Such  a  happy  blending  of  the 
infernal  with  the  celestial  is  seldom  witnessed  in  ordinary  business. 

The  behavior  of  some  people  in  a  crisis  is  a  wonderful  puzzle,  sometimes 
funnier  than  a  pig-circus.  At  the  St.  Petersburg  fire,  which  sent  half  the  town 
up  in  smoke,  an  old  woman  rescued  from  the  Adams  House,  with  a  bag  of 
money  containing  four-hundred  dollars,  was  indignant  that  her  fifty-cent  spec- 
tacles had  bqeh  left  to  burn.  A  male  .guest  stormed  over  the  loss  of  his 
satchel,  which  a  servant  had  carried  into  the  street,  and  threatened  a  suit  for 
damages.  The  satchel  was  found  and  opened.  It  had  a  pair  of  dirty  socks, 
two  dirty  collars,  a  comb  and  a  toothbrush  !  The  man  with  presence  of  mind 
to  throw  his  mother-in-law  from  the  fourth-story  window  and  carry  a  feather- 
.pillow  down  stairs  was  not  on  hand.  St.  Petersburg  had  no  four-story  buildings. 

John  Kiley  and  "  Ed."  Callaghan  headed  a  circle  of  jolly  jokers  at  Triangle 


ON  THE  SOUTHERN  TRAIL.  219 

City  and  Edenburg.  Hatching  practical  sells  was  their  meat  and  drink.  One 
evening  they  employed  a  stranger  to  personate  a  constable  from  Clarion  and 
arrest  a  pipe-line  clerk  for  the  paternity  of  a  bogus  offspring.  In  vain  the 
astonished  victim  protested  his  innocence,  although  he  acknowledged  knowing 
the  alleged  mother  of  the  alleged  kid.  The  minion  of  the  law  turned  a  deaf 
ear  to  his  prayers  for  release,  but  consented  to  let  him  go  until  morning  upon 
paying  a  five-dollar  note.  The  poor  fellow  thought  of  an  everlasting  flight  from 
Oildom and  was  leaving  the  room  to  pack  up  his  satchel  when  the  "constable " 
appeared  with  a  supply  of  fluids.  The  joke  was  explained  and  the  crowd 
liquidated  at  the  expense  of  the  subject  of  their  pleasantry.  Kiley  was  an  oil- 
man and  operated  in  the  northern  fields.  Callaghan  slung  lightning  in  the 
telegraph-office.  He  married  at  Edenburg  and  went  to  Chicago.  His  wife 
procured  a  divorce  and  married  a  well-known  Harrisburger. 

A  letter  from  his  feminine  sweetness,  advising  him  to  hurry  up  if  he  wished 
her  not  to  marry  his  rival,  so  frustrated  an  Edenburg  druggist  that  he  imbibed 
a  full  tumbler  of  Jersey  lightning.  An  irresistible  longing  to  lie  down  seized 
him  and  he  stretched  himself  for  a  nap  on  a  lounge  in  a  room  back  of  the 
store.  John  Kiley  discovered  the  sleeping  beauty,  spread  a  sheet  over  him 
and  prepared  for  a  little  sport.  He  let  down  the  blinds,  hung  a  piece  of  crape 
on  the  door  and  rushed  out  to  announce  that  "Jim"  was  dead.  People 
flocked  to  learn  the  particulars.  Entering  the  drug-store  a  placard  met  their 
gaze  :  "Walk  lightly,  not  to  disturb  the  corpse !"  They  were  next  taken  to 
the  door  of  the  rear  apartment,  to  see  a  pair  of  boots  protruding  from  beneath 
a  sheet.  Nobody  was  permitted  to  touch  the  body,  on  a  plea  that  it  must  await 
the  coroner,  but  the  friends  were  invited  to  drink  to  the  memory  of  the 
deceased  pill-dispenser  and  suggest  the  best  time  for  his  funeral.  Thus  mat- 
ters continued  two  hours,  when  the  "corpse"  wakened  up,  kicked  off  the 
sheet  and  walked  out !  His  friends  at  first  refused  to  recognize  him,  declaring 
the  apparition  was  a  ghost,  but  finally  consented  to  renew  the  acquaintance 
upon  condition  that  he  "set  'em  up"  for  the  thirsty  multitude. 

A  Clarion  operator,  having  to  spend  Sunday  in  New  York,  strayed  into  a 
fashionable  church  and  was  shown  to  a  swell  seat.  Shortly  after  a  gentleman 
walked  down  the  aisle,  glared  at  the  stranger,  drew  a  pencil  from  his  pocket, 
wrote  a  moment  and  handed  him  a  slip  of  paper  inscribed,  "This  is  my  pew." 
The  unabashed  Clarionite  didn't  bluff  a  little  bit.  He  wrote  and  handed  back 
the  paper  :  "It's  a  darned  nice  pew.  How  much  rent  do  you  ante  up  for  it?" 
The  New-Yorker  saw  the  joke,  sat  down  quietly  and  when  the  service  closed 
shook  hands  with  the  intruder  and  asked  him  to  dinner.  The  acquaintance 
begun  so  oddly  ripened  into  a  poker-game  next  evening,  at  which  the  oilman 
won  enough  from  the  city  clubman  to  pay  ten  years'  pew-rent.  At  parting  he 
remarked:  "Who's  in  the  wrong  pew  now?"  Then  he  whistled  softly: 
"Let  me  off  at  Buffalo!" 

Clarion's  products  were  not  confined  to  prize  pumpkins,  mammoth  corn 
and  oil-wells.  The  staunch  county  supplied  the  tallest  member  of  the  National 
Guard,  in  the  person  of  Thomas  Near,  twenty-one  years  old,  six  feet  eleven  in 
altitudinous  measurement  and  about  twice  the  thickness  of  a  fence-rail.  The 
Clarion  company  was  mustered  in  at  Meadville.  General  Latta's  look  of  aston- 
ishment as  he  suryeyed  the  latitude  and  longitude  of  the  new  recruit  was  ex- 
ceedingly comical.  He  rushed  to  Governor  Hartranft  and  whispered,  "Where 
in  the  name  of  Goliath  did  you  pick  up  that  young  Anak?"  At  the  next 
annual  review  Near  stood  at  the  end  of  the  Clarion  column.  A  staff-officer, 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


noticing  a  man  towering  a  foot  above  his  comrades,  spurred  his  horse  across 
the  field  and  yelled  :  "  Get  down  off  that  stump  you  blankety-blank  son  of  a 
gun  !"  The  tall  boy  did  not  "  get  down  "  and  the  enraged  officer  did  not  dis- 
cover how  it  was  until  within  a  rod  of  the  line.  His  chagrin  rivaled  that  of 
Moses  Primrose  with  the  shagreen  spectacles.  Poor  Near,  long  in  inches  and 
short  in  years,  was  not  long  .for  this  world  and  died  in  youthful  manhood. 

Counselled  by  "spirits,"  Abram  James  selected  a  block  of  land  on  Blyson 
Run,  twenty  miles  up  the  Clarion  River,  as  the  location  of  a  rich  petroleum- 
field.  His  luck  at  Pleasantville  induced  numbers  to  believe  him  an  infallible 
oil-smeller.  The  test-well  that  was  to  deluge  Blyson  with  crude  was  bored 
eighteen-hundred  feet.  It  had  no  sand  or  oil  and  the  tools  were  stuck  in  the 
hole  !  The  "  spirits  "  couldn't  have  missed  the  mark  more  widely  if  they  had 
directed  James  to  mine  for  gold  in  a  snow-bank. 

Hon.  James  M.  Guffey,  one  of  Pennsylvania's  most  popular  and  successful 
citizens,  began  his  career  as  a  producer  in  the  Clarion  district.  Born  and 
reared  on  a  Westmoreland  farm,  his  business  aptitude  early  manifested  itself. 
In  youth  he  went  south  to  fill  a  position  under  the  superintendent  of  the  Louis- 
ville &  Nashville  Railroad.  The 
practical  training  was  put  to  good 
use  by  the  earnest  young  Pennsyl- 
vanian.  Its  opportunities  for  dash 
and  energy  to  gain  rich  rewards 
attracted  him  to  the  oil  -  region. 
Profiting  by  what  he  learned  from 
the  experiences  of  others  in  Ve- 
nango  county— a  careful  observer, 
he  did  not  have  to  scorch  himself 
to  find  out  that  fire  is  hot  —  he 
located  at  St.  Petersburg  in  1872. 
Clarion  was  budding  into  promi- 
nence •  as  a  prospective  oil-field. 
Handling  well-machinery  as  agent 
of  the  Gibbs  &  Sterrett  Manufac- 
turing Company  brought  him  into 
close  relations  with  operators  and 
operations  in  the  new  territory. 
He  improved  his  advantages,  leased 
lands,  secured  interests  in  promis- 
ing farms,  drilled  wells  and  soon 
stepped  to  the  front  as  a  first-class 

producer.  Fortune  smiled  upon  the  plucky  Westmorelander,  whose  tireless 
push  and  fearless  courage  cool  judgment  and  sound  discretion  tempered 
admirably  While  always  ready  to  accept  the  risks  incident  to  producing  oil 
and  developing  untried  sections,  he  was  not  a  reckless  plunger,  going  ahead 
blindly  and  not  counting  the  cost.  He  decided  promptly,  moved  forward  reso- 
lutely and  took  nobody's  dust.  Those  who  endeavored  to  keep  up  with  him 
had  to  "ride  the  horse  of  Pacolet"  and  travel  fast.  He  invested  in  pipe-lines 
and  local  enterprises,  helped  every  deserving  cause,  stood  by  his  friends  and 
his  convictions,  believed  in  progress  and  acted  strictly  on  the  square.  Not 
one  dollar  of  his  splendid  winnings  came  to  him  in  a  manner  for  which  he  needs 
blush,  or  apologize  or  be  ashamed  to  look  any  man  on  earth  straight  in  the 


ON  THE  SOUTHERN  TRAIL.  221 

face.  He  did  not  get  his  money  at  the  expense  of  his  conscience,  of  his  self- 
respect,  of  his  generous  instincts  or  of  his  fellow-men.  Of  how  many  million- 
aires, in  this  age  of  shoddy  and  chicanery,  of  jobbery  and  corruption,  of  low 
trickery  and  inordinate  desire  for  wealth,  can  this  be  said? 

Mr.  Guffey  is  an  ardent  Democrat,  but  sensible  voters  of  all  classes  wished 
him  to  represent  them  in  Congress  and  gave  him  a  superb  send  off  in  the  oil- 
portion  of  the  Clarion  district.  Unfortunately  the  fossils  in  the  back-town- 
ships prevented  his  nomination.  The  uncompromising  foe  of  ring  rule,  boss- 
domination  and  machine-crookedness,  he  is  a  leader  of  the  best  elements  of 
his  party  and  not  a  noisy  ward-politician.  His  voice  is  potent  in  Democratic 
councils  and  his  name  is  familiar  in  every  corner  of  the  producing-regions. 
His  oil-operations  have  reached  to  Butler,  Forest,  Warren,  McKean  and  Alle- 
gheny counties.  He  furnished  the  cash  that  unlocked  the  Kinzua  pool  and 
extended  the  Bradford  field  miles  up  Foster  Brook.  In  company  with  John 
Galey,  Michael  Murphy  and  Edward  Jennings,  he  drilled  the  renowned  Mat- 
thews well  and  owned  the  juiciest  slice  of  the  phenomenal  McDonald  field. 
He  started  developments  in  Kansas,  putting  down  scores  of  wells,  erecting  a 
refinery  and  giving  the  state  of  Mary  Ellen  Lease  a  product  drouths  cannot 
blight  nor  grasshoppers  devour.  He  was  largely  instrumental  in  developing 
the  natural-gas  fields  of  Western  Pennsylvania,  Ohio  and  Indiana,  heading  the 
companies  that  piped  it  into  Pittsburg,  Johnstown,  Wheeling,  Indianapolis  and 
hundreds  of  small  towns.  He  owns  thousands  of  acres  of  the  famous  gas- 
coal  lands  of  his  native  county,  vast  coal-tracts  in  West  Virginia  and  valuable 
reality  in  Pittsburg.  He  lives  in  a  handsome  house  at  East  Liberty,  brightened 
by  a  devoted  wife  and  four  children,  and  dispenses  a  bountiful  hospitality. 
Quick  to  mature  and  execute  his  plans,  he  dispatches  business  with  great  ce- 
lerity, keeping  in  touch  constantly  with  the  details  of  his  manifold  enterprises. 
He  is  the  soul  of  honor  in  his  dealings,  liberal  in  his  benefactions  and  always 
approachable.  His  charm  of  manner,  kindness  of  heart,  keen  intuition  and 
rare  geniality  draw  men  to  him  and  inspire  their  confidence  and  regard.  He  is 
a  striking  personality,  his  lithe  frame,  alert  movements,  flowing  hair,  luxuriant 
mustache,  rolling  collar,  streaming  tie,  frock-coat  and  broad-brimmed  hat  sug- 
gesting General  Custer.  When  at  last  the  vital  fires  burn  low,  when  his  brave 
heart  beats  weak  and  slow,  when  the  evening  shadows  lengthen  and  he  enters 
the  deepening  dusk  at  the  ending  of  many  happy  years,  James  M.  Guffey  will 
have  lived  a  life  worth  living  for  its  worth  to  himself,  to  his  family,  to  the  com- 
munity and  to  the  race. 

"  The  grass  is  softer  to  his  tread 

For  rest  it  yields  unnumber'd  feet ; 
Sweeter  to  him  the  wild  rose  red 

Because  it  makes  the  whole  world  sweet." 

Thomas  McConnell,  Smith  K.  Campbell,  W.  D.  Robinson  and  Col.  J.  B. 
Finlay,  of  Kittanning,  in  1860  purchased  two  acres  of  land  on  the  west  bank  of 
the  Allegheny,  ninety  rods  above  Tom's  Run,  from  Elisha  Robinson.  Organ- 
izing the  Foxburg  Oil-Company  of  sixteen  shares,  they  drilled  a  well  four- 
hundred-and-sixty  feet.  An  obstruction  delayed  work  a  few  days,  the  war 
broke  out  and  the  well  was  abandoned.  The  same  parties  paid  Robinson  five- 
thousand  dollars  in  1865  for  one-hundred  acres  and  sold  thirty  to  Philadelphia 
capitalists.  The  latter  formed  the  Clarion  and  Allegheny-River  Oil-Company 
and  sunk  a  well  which  struck  oil  on  October  tenth,  the  first  produced  in  the 
upper  end  of  Armstrong  county  and  the  beginning  of  the  Parker  development. 


222  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE  OIL. 

Venango  was  drooping  and  operators  sought  the  southern  trail.  The  Robin- 
son farm  was  not  perforated  as  quickly  as  "you  could  say  Jack  Robinson,'' 
the  owners  choosing  not  to  cut  it  into  small  leases,  but  other  tracts  were  seized 
eagerly.  Drilled  deeper,  the  original  Robinson  well  was  utterly  dry  !  Had  it 
been  finished  in  1860-1  the  territory  might  have  been  condemned  and  the 
Parker  field  never  heard  of! 

John  Galey's  hundred-barrel  well,  drilled  in  1869  on  the  island  above 
Parker,  relieved  the  monotony  of  commonplace  strikes — twenty  to  fifty  barrels 
—on  the  Robinson  and  adjacent  farms  and  elevated  the  district  to  the  top  rung 
of  the  ladder.  Parker's  Landing— a  ferry  and  a  dozen  houses— named  from  a 
pioneer  settler,  ambled  merrily  to  the  head  of  the  procession.  The  center  of 
operations  that  stretched  into  Butler  county  and  demonstrated  the  existence  of 
three  greasy  streaks,  Parker  speedily  became  a  red-hot  town  of  three-thousand 
inhabitants.  Hotels,  stores,  offices,  banks  and  houses  crowded  the  strip  of 
land  at  the  base  of  the  steep  cliff,  surged  over  the  hill,  absorbed  the  suburbs  of 
Lawrenceburg  and  Farrentown  and  proudly  wore  the  title  of  "Parker  City." 
Hosts  of  capital  fellows  made  life  a  perpetual  whirl  of  business  and  jollity. 
Operators  of  every  class  and  condition,  men  of  eminent  ability,  indomitable 
hustlers,  speculators,  gamblers  and  adventurers  thronged  the  streets.  It  was 
the  vim  and  spice  and  vigor  of  Oil  City,  Rouseville,  Petroleum  Centre  and  Pit- 
hole  done  up  in  a  single  package.  A  hundred  of  the  liveliest  laddies  that  ever 
capered  about  a  "  bull-ring"  traded  jokes  and  stories  and  oil-certificates  at  the 
Oil-Exchange.  Two  fires  obliterated  nine-tenths  of  the  town,  which  was  never 
wholly  rebuilt.  Developments  .tended  southward  for  years  and  the  sun  of 
Parker  set  finally  when  Bradford's  rose  in  the  northern  sky.  The  bridge  and 
a  few  buildings  have  held  on,  but  the  banks  have  wound  up  their  accounts,  the 
multitudes  have  dispersed,  the  residence-section  of  the  cliff  is  a  waste  and  the 
glory  of  Parker  a  tradition.  As  the  ghost  of  Hamlet's  father  observed  con- 
cerning the  bicycle  academy,  where  beginners  on  wheels  were  plentiful  :  "What 
a  falling  off  was  there  !" 

Galey  leased  lands,  sunk  wells  and  sold  to  Phillips  Brothers  for  a  million 
dollars.  He  played  a  strong  hand  in  Butler  and  Allegheny  and  removed  to 
Pittsburg,  his  present  headquarters.  He  possessed  nerve,  energy  and  endur- 
ance and,  like  the  country-boy  applying  fora  job,  "wuz  jam'd  full  ov  day's 
work."  He  would  lend  a  hand  to  tube  his  wells,  lay  pipes,  move  a  boiler  or 
twist  the  tools.  There  wasn't  a  lazy  bone  in  his  anatomy.  Rain,  mud,  storm 
or  darkness  had  no  terrors  for  the  bold  rider,  who  bestrode  a  raw-boned  horse 
and  "took  Time  by  the  forelock."  A  young  lady  from  New  York,  whose 
father  was  interested  with  Galey  in  a  tract  of  oil-land,  accompanied  him  on 
one  of  his  visits  to  Millerstown.  She  had  heard  a  great  deal  about  her  father's 
partner  and  the  producers,  whom  she  imagined  to  be  clothed  in  broadcloth  and 
diamonds.  When  the  stage  from  Brady  drew  up  at  the  Central  Hotel  a  gor- 
geous chap  was  standing  on  the  platform.  He  sported  a  stunning  suit,  a  huge 
gold-chain,  a  diamond-pin  and  polished  boots,  the  whole  outfit  got  up  regard- 
less of  expense.  "Oh,  papa,  I  see  a  producer!  That  must  be  Mr.  Galey," 
exclaimed  the  girl  as  this  prototype  of  the  dude  met  her  gaze.  The  father 
glanced  at  the  object,  recognized  him  as  a  neighboring  bar-tender  and  spoiled 
his  daughter's  fanciful  notion  by  the  curt  rejoinder:  "That  blamed  fool  is  a 
gin-slinger !"  Butler  had  long  been  a  sort  of  by- word  for  poverty  and  mean- 
ness, the  settlers  going  by  the  nickname  of  "  Buckwheats."  This  was  an  unjust 
imputation,  as  the  simple  people  were  kind,  honest  and  industrious,  in  these 


ON    THE   SOUTHERN    TRAIL, 


223 


respects  presenting  a  decided  contrast  to  some  of  the  new  elements  in  the 
wake  of  the  petroleum-development.  The  New- York  visitor  drove  out  in  the 
afternoon  to  meet  his  business-associate.  A  mile  below  the  Diviner  farm  a 
man  on  horseback  was  seen  approaching.  Mud  covered  the  panting  steed  and 
his  rider.  The  young  lady,  anxious  to  show  how  much  she  knew  about  the 
country,  hazarded  another  guess.  "Oh!  papa,"  she  said  earnestly,  "I'm 
sure  that's  a  Buckwheat !"  The  father  chuckled,  next  moment  greeted  the  rider 
warmly  and  introduced  him  to  his  astonished  daughter  as  "My  partner,  Mr. 
Galey  !"  A  hearty  laugh  followed  the  father's  version  of  the  day's  incidents. 

John  McKeown  drilled  on  the  Farren  hill  and  the  slopes  bordering  the 
north  bank  of  Bear  Creek.  Glory  Hole  popped  up  on  B.  B.  Campbell's  Bear- 
Creek  farm.  Campbell — bluff,  whole-souled  "  Ben" — is  a  Pittsburg  capitalist, 
big  in  body  and  mind,  outspoken  and  independent.  "The  Campbells  are 
coming ' '  could  not  have  found 
a  better  herald.  He  produced 
largely,  bought  stacks  of  farms, 
refined  and  piped  oil  and  was 
an  important  factor  in  the  Arm- 
strong-Butler development.  At 
the  Ursa  Major  well,  the  first  on 
the  farm,  large  casing  and  heavy 
tools  were  first  used,  with  grati- 
fying results.  "Charley"  Cra- 
mer juggled  the  temper-screw 
and  laughed  at  the  chaps  who 
solemnly  predicted  the  joints 
would  not  stand  the  strain  and 
the  engine  would  not  jerk  the 
tools  out  of  the  hole.  The  tool- 
dresser  on  Cramer's  "tower  "- 
drilling  went  on  night  and  day, 
each  "tower"  lasting  twelve 
hours  and  the  men  changing  at 
noon  and  midnight — was  A.  M. 
Lambing,  now  the  learned  and 
zealous  parish  -  priest  at  Brad- 
dock.  The  well,  completed  in 
June  of  1871  and  good  for  a  hundred  barrels,  was  owned  by  James  M.  Lam- 
bing, to  whom  more  than  any  other  man  the  world  is  indebted  for  the  extension 
of  the  Butler  field. 

Born  in  Armstrong  county,  in  1861  young  Lambing  concluded  to  invest 
some  time  and  labor— his  sole  capital— in  a  well  at  the  mouth  of  Tubb's  Run, 
two  miles  above  Tionesta.  A  dry-hole  was  the  poor  reward  of  his  efforts. 
Enlisting  in  the  Eighty-third  Regiment,  he  received  disabling  injuries,  was  dis- 
charged honorably,  returned  to  Forest  county  in  1863,  superintended  the  Den- 
ver Petroleum-Company,  dealt  in  real  estate  and  in  1866  commenced  operating 
at  Tidioute.  A  vein  of  bad  luck  in  1867  exhausting  his  last  dollar,  he  sold  his 
gold-watch  and  chain  to  pay  the  wages  of  his  drillers.  Facing  the  future 
bravely,  he  worked  by  the  day,  contracted  to  bore  wells  at  Pleasantville, 
Church  Run,  Shamburg  and  Red  Hot  and  bore  up  cheerfully  during  three 
years  of  adversity.  In  the  winter  of  1869  he  traded  an  engine  for  an  interest  in 


JAMES   M.    LAMBING. 


224 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


a  well  at  Parker  that  smelled  of  oil.  For  another  interest  he  drilled  the  Wilt 
&  Crawford  well  and  secured  leases  on  Tom's  Run.  His  Pharos,  Gipsy 
Queen  and  Lady  Mary  wells  enabled  him  to  strike  out  boldly.  In  company 
with  his  brother  —  John  A.  Lambing  —  C.  D.  Angell  and  B.  B.  Campbell,  he 
ventured  beyond  the  prescribed  limits  to  the  Campbell,  Morrison  and  Gibson 
farms.  He  "  wildcatted  "  farther  south,  at  times  with  varying  success,  point- 
ing the  way  to  Modoc  and  Millerstown.  Reverses  beset  him  temporarily,  but 
hope  and  courage  and  integrity  remained  and  he  recovered  the  lost  ground. 
Charitable,  enterprising  and  sincere,  no  truer,  squarer,  manlier  man  than  James 
M.  Lambing  ever  marched  in  the  grand  cavalcade  of  Pennsylvania  oil-producers. 
He  and  John  A.  retired  from  the  business  years  ago  to  engage  in  other  pursuits. 
James  M.  settled  at  Corry  and  served  so  capably  as  mayor  that  the  citizens 
wanted  to  elect  him  for  life.  His  noble,  womanly  wife,  a  real  helpmeet  always, 
makes  his  hospitable  home  an  earthly  paradise.  He  has  an  office  in  Pittsburg 
and  customers  for  his  Ajax  machinery  wherever  oil  is  produced.  "Who  can 
blot  his  name  with  any  just  reproach?" 

Well-known  operators  figured  in  the  vicinity  of  Bear  Creek.    Joseph  Overy 
drilled  rows  of  good  wells,  pushed  south  and  founded  the  town  embalmed  as 
St.  Joe  in  compliment  to  its  progenitor.     Marcus  Brownson—  he  was  active  in 
Venango  and  McKean  and  died  at  Titusville — had  a  walkover  on  the  Walker 
VENANGO  farm,  a  mile  in  advance.     On  Donnelly's 

eleven-hundred  acres,  offered  in  1868 
for  six-thousand-dollars,  scores  of  me- 
-  dium  wells  yielded  from  1871  to  1878. 
S.  D.  Karns  drained  the  Morrison  farm 
and  John  McKeown  hit  the  "sucker- 
rod  belt" — so  called  from  its  extreme 
narrowness  — near  Martinsburg.  Ralph 
Brothers  tickled  the  sand  on  the  Sheak- 
ley  farm.  Up  the  stream  operations 
jogged  and  Argyle  City  sprouted  on  the 
hillside.  Two  miles  ahead,  upon  the 
line  dividing  the  Jameson  and  Blaney 
farms,  Dimick,  Nesbit  &  Co.  finished 
a  wildcat  well  on  April  seventeenth, 
1892.  This  was  the  noted  Fanny  Jane — 
gallantly  named  in  honor  of  a  pretty- 
girl— which  pumped  one-hundred  barrels 
and  gave  birth  to  Petrolia,  seven  miles 
south  by  west  of  Parker.  George  H. 

ALLEGHENY.  Dimick,  examining   lands    in    Fairview 

township,  Butler  county,  decided  that  a  natural  basin  at  the  junction  of  South 
Bear  Creek  and  Dougherty  Run  was  oil-territory.  Fifty  men  were  raising  a 
barn  on  the  Campbell  farm,  overlooking  this  basin.  Proceeding  to  the  spot, 
he  proposed  to  drill  a  test  well  if  the  owners  of  the  soil  would  lease  enough 
land  to  warrant  the  undertaking.  Terms  were  agreed  upon  which  secured 
twenty  acres  of  the  Blaney  farm,  sixteen  of  the  Jameson,  ten  of  the  W.  A. 
Wilson,  ten  of  the  James  Wilson  and  ten  of  the  Graham,  at  one-eighth  roy- 
alty. The  nearest  producing  wells  at  that  date  were  three  miles  north.  The 
Fanny  Jane  stirred  the  blood  of  the  oil-clans.  The  moving  mass  began  to 
arrive  in  May  and  by  July  two-thousand  people  had  their  home  at  Petrolia. 


ON   THE  SOUTHERN  TRAIL. 


225 


A  charter  was  obtained  and  Mr.  Dimick  was  chosen  burgess  at  the  first  bor- 
ough-election, in  February  of  1873.  The  town  expanded  like  the  turnip  Long- 
fellow said  "grew  and  it  grew  and  it  grew  all  it  was  able."  Hotels,  stores, 
shops  and  offices  lined  the  valley  and  dwellings  crowned  the  hills.  A  narrow- 
gauge  railroad  from  Parker  was  built  in  1874,  extended  to  Karns  City  and 
Millerstown  and  ultimately  to  Butler.  Fisher  Brothers  paid  sixty-thousand 


!Pt^S 

%1: 


<fc 


V-1 


m&rf  •! 

r/s^^fr-^o 

B^/c 


VV 


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dollars  for  the  Blaney  farm  and  wells  multiplied  in  all  directions.  A  dog-fight 
or  a  street-scrap  would  gather  hundreds  of  spectators.  The  Argyle  Savings 
Bank  handled  hundreds-of-thousands  of  dollars  daily.  Ben  Hogan  erected  a 
big  opera-house  and  May  Marshall  was  the  Cora  Pearl  of  the  frail  sisterhood. 
R.  W.  Cram  ran  the  post-office  and  news-room.  "Steve"  Harley  wafted 
newsy  items  to  the  newspapers.  Dr.  Frank  H.  Johnston,  now  of  Franklin,  was 
the  first  physician.  Kindred  spirits  met  at  "Sam"  McBride's  drug-store  and 


226  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

Peter  Christie's  Central  Hotel.  Poor  "Sam,"  "Dave"  Mosier,  H.  L.  Mo 
Cance  and  S.  S.  Avery  are  in  their  graves  and  others  have  wandered  nobody 
knows  whither.  Petrolia  continued  the  metropolis  four  years  and  then  dropped 
out  of  the  game.  Some  straggling  houses  and  left-over  derricks  alone  remain 
of  the  gayest,  sprightliest,  hottest,  busiest  town  that  bloomed  and  withered  in 
old  Butler. 

George  H.  Dimick,  the  son  of  a  Wisconsin  farmer  and  sire  of  Petrolia,  is 
liberally  stocked  with  the  never-say-die  qualities  of  the  breezy  Westerner.  At 
nineteen  he  taught  a  Milwaukee  school,  landed  on  Oil  Creek  in  1860  and  was 
appointed  superintendent  of  the  two  Buchanan  farms  by  Rouse  &  Mitchell. 
He  drilled  on  his  own  account  in  the  spring  of  1861,  aided  in  settling  the  Rouse 
estate,  enrolled  as  a  private  in  "Scott's  Nine-Hundred"  and  came  out  a  cap- 
tain at  the  close  of  the  war.  In  May  of  1865  he  bent  his  footsteps  towards  Pit- 
hole,  sold  lands  for  the  United  States  Petroleum-Company  and  drilled  eleven 
dry-holes  on  the  McKinney  farm  !  Interests  in  the  Poole,  Grant,  Eureka  and 
Burchill  spouters  offset  these  losses  and  added  thousands  of  dollars  a  week  to 
his  wealth.  Staying  at  Pithole  too  long,  values  had  shrunk  to  such  a  degree 
that  he  was  virtually  penniless  at  his  departure  from  the  "  Magic  City"  in  1867. 
A  whaling  voyage  of  fifteen  months  in  the  Arctic  seas  and  a  sojourn  at  his  boy- 
hood home  improved  his  health  and  he  returned  in  time  to  share  in  the  Pleas- 
antville  excitement.  He  located  at  Parker's  Landing  in  1871  as  partner  of 
McKinney  &  Nesbit  in  the  sale  of  oil-well  supplies.  He  operated  in  the  Parker 
field,  at  St.  Petersburg,  Petrolia,  Greece  City  and  Slippery  Rock.  Disposing 
of  his  properties  in  these  localities,  he  and  Captain  Peter  Grace  drilled  the 
wildcat  well  that  opened  Cherry  Grove  and  paralyzed  the  market  in  1882.  He 
had  been  active  at  Bradford  and  the  middle  field  felt  the  influence  of  his  shrewd 
movements.  He  has  kept  abreast  of  developments  in  the  southern  districts, 
sometimes  getting  several  lengths  ahead.  He  is  now  interested  in  West  Vir- 
ginia and  Kentucky.  Those  who  know  his  quick  perception,  his  executive 
ability  and  his  intense  love  for  opening  new  fields  would  not  wonder  to  hear  of 
his  striking  a  gusher  at  Oshkosh  or  Kamtschatka.  Mr.  Dimick  is  a  man  of 
active  temperament,  high  character  and  sturdy  industry,  a  genuine  pathfinder 
and  tireless  explorer. 

An  Erie  boy  of  fifteen  when  he  left  his  father's  house  for  the  oil-region  in 
1862,  George  H.  Nesbit  first  fired  a  still  in  a  Titusville  refinery  and  in  1863 
engaged  with  Dinsmore  Brothers  at  Tarr  Farm.  He  built  a  small  refinery  at 
Shaffer,  sold  it  in  1864  and  in  the  spring  of  1865  drilled  wells  for  himself  on 
Benninghoff  and  Cherry-Tree  Runs.  He  spent  two  years  at  Pithole,  gaining  a 
fortune  and  remaining  until  the  collapse  swallowed  the  bulk  of  his  profits.  He 
operated  at  Pioneer  in  1867  and  a  year  later  at  Pleasantville.  He  and  George 
H.  Dimick  prospected  in  1869  for  oil-belts  and  fresh  territory,  located  rich 
leases  on  Hickory  Creek  and  established  the  line  of  the  Venture  well  at  Fagun- 
das.  In  1870  Nesbit  moved  to  Parker  and,  in  company  with  John  L.  McKinney, 
sold  oil-well  machinery  and  oil-lands.  McKinney  &  Nesbit  drilled  along  Bear 
Creek,  especially  on  the  Black  and  Dutchess  farms,  prospering  greatly.  The 
firm  ranked  with  the  most  enterprising  and  realized  large  returns  from  wells  at 
St.  Petersburg  and  Parker.  Dimick  &  Nesbit,  with  .Mr.  McKinney  as  their 
associate,  opened  the  Petrolia  field  in  1872.  William  Lardin,  the  contractor  of 
the  Fanny  Jane,  bought  McKinney's  interest  in  the  well  and  leases.  The  three 
partners  were  right  in  the  swim,  their  first  six  wells  at  Petrolia  yielding  them  a 
thousand  barrels  a  day.  Nesbit  bought  the  Patton  farm,  below  town,  in  1872 


ON  THE  SOUTHERN   TRAIL.  227 

for  twenty-thousand  dollars,  selling  five-eighths.  Five  third-sand  wells  ranged 
from  thirty  to  one-hundred  barrels  and  oil  ruled  at  three  to  five  dollars.  The 
fourth-sand  was  found  in  1873,  and  in  January  of  1874  Nesbit  &  Lardin  struck  a 
thousand-barrel  gusher  on  the  Patton.  The  farm  paid  enormously  and  Nesbit 
became  an  "oil-prince."  He  developed  hundreds  of  acres  and  displayed  mas- 
terly tact.  His  check  was  good  for  a  half-million  any  day  and  his  luck  was  so 
remarkable  that,  had  he  fallen  into  the  river,  probably  he  would  not  have  been 
wet.  He  paid  the  highest  wages  and  met  his  bills  at  sight.  He  entered  the 
oil-exchange  at  Parker,  for  a  time  was  a  high-roller  and  ended  a  bankrupt ! 
The  desk  on  which  he  wrote  his  bold,  round  signature  on  checks  aggregating 
many  hundred-thousand  dollars  was  stored  away  among  shocks  of  corn  and 
sheaves  of  oats  in  the  weather-stained  barn  on  the  Patton  farm.  J.  N.  Ireland 
bought  the  tract  for  seven-thousand  dollars.  Nesbit  drifted  about  aimlessly, 
heard  from  occasionally  at  Macksburg  and  fetching  up  at  last  in  Cincinnati. 
His  prestige  was  gone,  his  star  had  waned  and  he  never  "caught  on"  again. 
He  was  no  sluggard  in  business,  no  dullard  in  society,  no  niggard  with  money, 
no  laggard  in  the  petroleum-column.  Surely  the  oil-region  has  furnished  its 
full  allotment  of  sad  romances  from  real  life. 

"  Time,  with  a  face  like  a  mystery,  . 
And  hands  as  busy  as  hands  can  be, 
Sits  at  the  loom  with  its  warp  outspread, 
To  catch  in  its  meshes  each  glancing  thread. 
Click,  click  !  there's  a  thread  of  love  wove  in ! 
Click,  click  !  and  another  of  wrong  and  sin  ! 
What  a  checkered  thing  this  web  will  be 
When  we  see  it  unrolled  in  eternity  !" 

James  E.  Brown,  to  whom  Nesbit  sold  one-quarter  of  the  Patton  farm, 
made  his  mark  upon  the  industries  of  the  state.  A  carpenter's. son,  he  started 
a  store  on  the  site  of  Kittanning,  saved  money,  purchased  lands  and  at  his 
death  in  1880  left  his  family  four-millions.  He  manufactured  iron  at  various 
furnaces  and  owned  a  big  block  of  stock  in  the  rolling-mills  at  East  Brady. 
Samuel  J.  Tilden  was  a  stockholder  in  the  works,  which  employed  sixteen 
hundred  men,  turned  out  the  first  T-rails  west  of  the  Alleghenies  and  tottered 
to  their  fall  in  1874.  Mr.  Brown  cleared  eight-hundred-thousand  dollars  in 
1872  by  the  advance  in  iron.  He  owned  oil-farms  in  Butler  county,  took  stock 
in  the  Parker  Bridge,  the  Parker  &  Karns  City  Railroad  and  the  Karns  Pipe- 
Line  Company  and  conducted  a  bank  at  Kittanning.  His  granddaughter, 
Miss  Findley,  who  inherited  half  his  wealth,  married  Lord  Linton,  a  British 
baronet.  The  aged  banker — he  stuck  it  out  to  eighty-two — knew  how  to  pile 
up  money. 

Stephen  Duncan  Karns,  who  had  a  railroad  and  a  town  named  in  his  honor, 
was  a  picturesque  figure  in  the  Armstrong-Butler  district.  With  his  two  uncles 
he  operated  the  first  West-Virginia  well,  at  the  mouth  of  Burning-Spring  Run, 
in  1860.  His  experience  at  his  father's  Tarentum  salt-wells  enabled  him  to  run 
engine,  to  sharpen  tools  and  clean  out  an  old  salt-well  to  be  tested  for  oil. 
The  well  pumped  forty  barrels  a  day  during  the  winter  of  1860-1.  Fort  Sumter 
was  bombarded,  several  Kanawha  operators  were  killed  and  young  Karns 
escaped  by  night  in  a  canoe.  He  enlisted,  served  three  years,  led  his  company 
at  Antietam  and  Chancellorsville  and  in  1866  leased  one  acre  at  Parker's  Land- 
ing from  Fullerton  Parker.  His  first  well,  starting  at  one  barrel  a  day,  by 
months  of  pumping  was  increased  to  twelve  barrels  and  earned  him  twenty- 
thousand  dollars.  From  the  Miles  Oil-Company  of  New  York  he  leased  a  farm 


228  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

and  an  abandoned  well  a  mile  below  Parker.  He  drilled  the  well  through  the 
sand  and  it  produced  twenty-five  barrels  a  day.  This  settled  the  question  of 
oil  south  of  Parker.  "Dune,"  as  he  was  usually  called  by  his  friends,  leased 
the  Farren  farm,  drilled  on  Bear  Creek,  secured  the  famous  Stonehouse  farm 
of  three-hundred  acres  and  in  1872  enjoyed  an  income  of  five-thousand  dollars 
a  day  !  A  mile  south  of  Petrolia,  on  the  McClymonds  farm,  Cooper  Brothers 
were  about  to  give  up  their  .first  well  as  a  hopeless  duster.  Karns  thought  the 
hole  not  deep  enough,  bought  the  property,  resumed  drilling  and  in  two  days 
the  well  was  flowing  one-hundred  barrels  !  The  town  of  Karns  City  blossomed 
into  a  community  of  twenty-five-hundred  people,  with  three  big  hotels,  stores, 
offices  and  dwellings  galore.  It  fell  a  prey  to  the  flames  eventually.  The 
McClymonds,  Riddle  and  J.  B.  Campbell  farms  doubled  "  Dune's"  big  income 
for  many  moons.  He  had  the  second  well  at  Greece  City  and  for  a  year  or 
more  was  the  largest  producer  in  the  oil-region.  He  built  a  pipe-line  from 
Karns  City  to  Harrisburg  to  fight  the  United  Lines,  held  fifty- five-thousand 
dollars'  stock  in  the  Parker  Bridge  and  controlled  the  Parker  &  Karns-City 
Railroad  and  the  Exchange  Bank. 

Near  Freeport,  on  the  Allegheny  River,  thirty  miles  above  Pittsburg,  he 
lassoed  a  great  farm  and  erected  a  fifty-thousand-dollar  mansion.  Fourteen 
race-horses  fed  in  his  palatial  stables.  Guests  might  bathe  in  champagne 
and  the  generous  host  spent  money  royally.  A  good  strike  or  a  point  gained 
meant  a  general  jollification.  He  played  billiards  skillfully,  handled  cards 
expertly  and  wagered  heavily  on  anything  that  hit  his  fancy.  He  and  his  wife 
were  in  Paris  during  the  siege.  Upon  his  return  from  Europe  he  built  the 
Fredericksburg  &  Orange  Railroad,  in  Virginia.  The  glut  of  crude  from  But- 
ler wells  dropped  the  price  in  1874  to  forty  cents.  Losses  of  different  kinds 
cramped  Karns  and  the  man  worth  three-millions  in  1872-3  was  obliged  to 
surrender  his  stocks  and  lands  and  wells  and  begin  anew  !  James  E.  Brown 
secured  Glen-Karns,  the  beautiful  home  below  Freeport.  In  1880  Karns 
induced  E.  O.  Emerson,  the  wealthy  Titusville  producer,  to  start  a  cattle-ranch 
in  Western  Colorado.  For  six  years  he  superintended  the  herds  on  the 
immense  plains,  joining  the  round-ups,  sleeping  on  the  ground  with  the  boys, 
roping  and  branding  cattle  and  accumulating  a  stock  of  health  and  muscle 
which  he  thinks  will  carry  him  to  the  hundred-year  mark.  Emerson  had 
bought  from  Karns  the  Riddle  farm  for  eleven-thousand  dollars.  He  deepened 
one  well — supposed  dry — to  the  fourth  sand.  It  flowed  six-hundred  barrels 
and  Emerson  sold  the  tract  in  sixty  days  for  ninety-thousand  dollars.  Karns 
returned  from  the  west,  practiced  law  a  short  while  in  Philadelphia  and  for 
some  years  has  managed  a  Populist  paper  at  Pittsburg.  He  ran  against  John 
Dalzell  for  Congress  and  walked  at  the  head  of  the  parade  when  General 
Coxey's  "  Army  of  the  Commonweal  "  marched  through  the  Smoky  City.  He 
enjoyed  making  money  more  than  handling  it,  was  honorable  in  his  dealings, 
intensely  active,  comprehensive  in  his  views  and  positive  in  his  opinions.  His 
"yes"  or  "no"  was  given  promptly.  "  Dune"  is  of  slender  build  and  ner- 
vous temperamont,  easy  in  his  manners,  frank  in  his  utterances  and  not  scared 
by  spooks  in  politics  or  trade.  He  had  his  share  of  light  and  shade,  struggle 
and  triumph,  defeat  and  victory,  incident  and  adventure  in  his  pilgrimage. 

"  How  chances  mock, 
And  changes  fill  the  cup  of  alteration 
With  divers  liquors!" 

Richard  Jennings,  over  whose  head  the  grass  and  flowers  are  growing,  and 


ON  THE  SOUTHERN  TRAIL.  229 

his  brother-in-law,  the  late  Jacob  L.  Meldren,  did  much  to  develop  the  territory 
east  of  Petrolia.  Coming  from  England  to  Armstrong  county  a  half-century 
ago,  they  located  at  what  is  now  Queenstown.  Meldren  bought  the  farm  at 
the  head  of  Armstrong  Run  on  which  the  noted  Armstrong  well  was  struck  in 
1870.  It  opened  "the  Cross-Belt,"  an  abnormal  strip  running  nearly  at  right 
angles  to  the  main  lines  and  remarkable  for  mammoth  gushers.  This  unpre- 
cedented "  belt "  upset  the  theories  of  geologists  and  operators.  The  first  and 
only  one  of  its  kind,  it  resembled  the  mule  that  "  had  no  pride  of  ancestry  and 
no  hope  of  posterity."  Mr.  Jennings  drilled  on  many  farms  and  gathered  a 
large  fortune.  He  was  a  man  of  character  and  ability,  with  a  priceless  reputa- 
tion for  integrity  and  truthfulness.  Once  he  sent  his  foreman,  Daniel  Evans,  to 
secure  the  Dougherty  farm,  on  the  southern  edge  of  Petrolia,  owned  by  two 
maiden  sisters.  The  foreman  knocked  at  the  door,  engaged  board  for  a  week, 
was  engaged  to  the  elder  sister  before  the  week  expired  and  had  the  pleasure 
of  reaping  a  harvest  of  greenbacks  from  the  property  in  due  course.  It  is  sat- 
isfactory to  find  such  enterprise  abundantly  recompensed.  Not  so  lucky  was 
a  gay  and  festive  operator  with  an  ancient  maiden  who  owned  a  tempting  patch 
of  land  near  Millerstown.  He  exhausted  every  art  to  get  a  lease,  in  despera- 
tion finally  hinting  at  matrimony.  The  indignant  lady  exploded  like  a  ton  of 
dynamite,  seizing  a  broom  and  compelling  the  bold  visitor  to  beat  an  ungrace- 
ful retreat  through  the  window,  minus  his  hat  and  gloves  !  Evans  leased  part 
of  the  farm  to  his  former  employer,  who  finished  the  Dougherty  spouter  on 
November  twenty-second,  1873.  It  flowed  twenty-seven-hundred  barrels  a  day 
from  the  fourth  sand,  loading  Jennings  with  greenbacks  and  sending  the  specu- 
lative trade  into  convulsions.  A  patriotic  citizen,  devoted  parent  and  genuine 
philanthropist,  Richard  Jennings  was  sincerely  respected  and  his  death  was 
deeply  mourned.  His  sons  inherited  their  father's  sagacity  and  manly  prin- 
ciple. They  have  operated  in  the  McDonald  field  and  are  prominent  in  bank- 
ing and  business  at  Pittsburg. 

The  "  Cross-Belt "  crossed  the  petroleum-horizon  in  dead  earnest  in  March 
of  1874.  Taylor  &  Satterfield's  Boss  well,  on  the  James  Parker  farm,  two 
miles  east  of  Petrolia,  flowed  three-thousand  barrels  a  day  !  William  Hartley — 
General  Harrison  Allen  defeated  him  for  Auditor-General  in  1872 — organized 
the  Stump  Island  Oil-Company  and  drilled  from  the  mouth  of  the  Clarion  River 
six  miles  south,  in  1866-7.  He  and  John  Galey  owned  the  Island-King  well  at 
Parker's  Landing  and  a  hundred  others,  some  of  which  crept  well  down  into 
Armstrong  county.  Richard  Jennings  and  Jacob  L.  Meldren  had  punched 
holes  on  Armstrong  Run  and  around  Queenstown,  but  the  spouter  in  the 
Parker-farm  ravine  was  the  fellow  that  touched  the  spot  and  hypnotized  the 
trade.  A  solid  stream  of  oil  poured  into  the  tank  as  if  butted  through  the 
pipe  by  a  hundred  hydraulic-rams.  The  billowy  mass  of  fluid  heaved  and 
foamed  and  boiled  and  tried  its  level  best  to  climb  over  the  wooden  walls  and 
unload  the  roof.  David  S.  Criswell,  of  Oil  City,  had  an  interest  in  the  gusher, 
and  Criswell  City— a  shop,  a  lunch-room  and  five  or  six  dwellings— was 
imprinted  on  Heydrick  &  Stevenson's  map.  Stages  between  Petrolia  and 
Brady  halted  at  the  bantling  town  for  the  convenience  of  pilgrims  to  the  shrine 
of  the  Boss — a  "boss"  representing  innumerable  "bar'ls."  Wells  were  hur- 
ried down  at  a  spanking  gait,  to  divy  up  the  oily  freshet.  "The  best-laid 
schemes  o'  mice  an'  men  gang  afta-gley"  and  the  uncertainty  of  fourth-sand 
wells  was  forcibly  illustrated.  Jennings  had  dry-holes  on  the  Steele  and  Bed- 
ford farms,  the  latter  ten  rods  north-west  of  the  mastodon.  Taylor  &  Satter- 


230 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE -OIL. 


field's  No.  2,  thirty  rods  west,  was  a  small  affair.  Dusters  and  light  pumpers 
studded  the  road  from  Criswell  to  Petrolia,  with  the  Hazelwood  Oil-Company's 
two-hundred-barreler  a  trifle  north  to  tantalize  believers  in  a  straight  "belt." 
Lines  and  belts  and  theories  and  former  experiences  amounted  to  little  or 
nothing.  The  only  safe  method  was  to  "go  it  blind  "  and  bear  with  exemplary 
resignation  whatever  might  turn  up,  be  it  a  big  gusher  or  a  measly  duster. 
The  Boss  weakened  to  eleven-hundred  barrels  in  July  and  to  a  humble 
pumper  by  the  end  of  the  year.  Forty  rods  east,  on  the  Crawford  farm,  Hun- 
ter &  Cummings  plucked  a  September  pippin.  Their  Lady  Hunter,  sixteen- 
hundred  feet  deep  and  flowing  twenty-five-hundred  barrels,  was  a  trophy  to 
enrapture  any  hunter  coming  from  the  chase.  The  Boss  and  the  Lady  Hunter 
were  the  lord  and  lady  of  the  manor,  none  of  the  others  approaching  them  in 


importance.  Hunter  &  Cummings  laid  a  pipe-line  to  East  Brady,  to  load  their 
oil  on  the  Allegheny- Valley  Railroad.  The  railroad  company  refused  to  fur- 
nish cars,  urging  a  variety  of  pretexts  to  disguise  the  unfair  discrimination. 
The  owners  of  the  oil  had  a  Roland  for  the  Oliver  of  the  officials.  They 
quietly  gauged  their  output  and  let  it  run  upon  the  ground,  notifying  the  com- 
pany to  pay  for  the  oil.  A  new  light  dawned  upon  the  railroaders,  who  dis- 
covered they  had  to  deal  with  men  who  knew  their  rights  and  dared  maintain 
them.  Crawling  off  their  high  stool,  they  footed  the  bill,  apologized  meekly 
and  thenceforth  took  precious  care  Hunter  &  Cummings  should  not  have  rea- 
son to  complain  of  a  car-famine.  Simon  Legree  was  not  the  only  braggart 
whom  good  men  have  been  obliged  to  knock  down  to  inspire  with  decent 
respect  for  fair-play. 

Hunter  &  Cummings  stayed  in  the  business,  opening  the  "  Pontius  Pool," 


ON  THE  SOUTHERN  TRAIL.  231 

east  of  Millerstown,  and  sinking  many  wells  at  Herman  Station,  where  they 
still  have  a  snug  production.  They  operated  on  the  lands  of  the  Brady's  Bend 
Iron-Company,  putting  down  the  wells  on  the  hills  opposite  East  Brady  and  a 
number  in  the  Bradford  region.  They  own  the  Tidioute  Savings  Bank  and 
large  tracts  in  North  Dakota — the  scene  of  their  "bonanza  farming" — and  are 
interested  with  the  Grandins  in  the  great  lumber-mills  at  Grandin,  Missouri,  the 
largest  in  the  south-west.  In  connection  with  these  mills  they  are  building 
railroads  to  develop  their  two-hundred-thousand  acres  of  timber-lands  and 
establish  experimental  farms.  Both  members  of  the  firm  are  the  architects  of 
their  own  fortunes,  public-spirited,  generous  and  eminently  deserving  of  the 
liberal  measure  of  success  that  has  attended  their  labors  during  the  twenty- 
three  years  of  their  association  as  partners. 

Jahu  Hunter  was  born  on  a  farm  two  miles  above  Tidioute  in  1830.  From 
seventeen  to  twenty-seven  he  lumbered  and  farmed,  in  1857  engaged  in  mer- 
chandising and  in  1861  sold  his  store  and  embarked  in  oil.  He  operated  mod- 
erately five  years,  increasing  his  interests  largely  in  1866  and  forming  a  partner- 
ship with  H.  H.  Cummings  in  1873,  which  continues  yet.  Mr.  Hunter  married 
Miss  Margaret  R.  Magee  in  1860  and  one  son,  L.  L.  Hunter,  survives  to  aid  in 
managing  his  extensive  business-enterprises.  He  occupies  a  delightful  home 
at  Tidioute,  is  president  of  the  Savings  Bank  and  of  the  chair-factory,  a  Mason 
of  the  thirty-second  degree  and  a  leader  in  all  progressive  movements.  He 
has  lands  in  various  states  and  has  prospered  in  manifold  undertakings.  He 
served  as  school-director  fifteen  years,  contributing  time  and  money  freely  in 
behalf  of  education.  He  believes  in  bettering  humanity,  in  relieving  distress, 
in  befriending  the  poor,  in  helping  the  struggling  and  in  building  up  the  com- 
munity. Retired  from  active  work,  the  evening  of  Jahu  Hunter's  useful  life  is 
serene  and  unclouded.  As  the  shadows  lengthen  he  can  review  the  past  with 
calm  content  and  await  the  future  without  apprehension. 

Captain  H.  H.  Cummings  removed  from  Illinois,  his  birthplace  in  1840,  to 
Ohio  and  was  graduated  from  Oberlin  College  at  twenty-two.  Enlisting  in 
July,  1862,  he  shared  the  privations  and  achievements  of  the  Army  of  the  Cum- 
berland until  mustered  out  in  June,  1865.  Three  months  later  he  visited  the 
oli-region  and  in  January  of  1866  located  at  Tidioute  in  charge  of  Day  &  Co.'s 
refinery.  Becoming  a  partner,  he  refined  and  exported  oil  seven  years  and 
was  interested  in  wells  at  Tidioute  and  Fagundas.  The  firm  dissolving  in  1873, 
he  joined  hands  with  Jahu  Hunter  and  operated  extensively  in  the  lower  coun- 
try. Hunter  &  Cummings  stood  in  the  front  rank  as  representative  producers. 
Captain  Cummings  is  president  of  the  Missouri  Mining  and  Lumbering  Com- 
pany, which  has  a  paid-up  capital  of  five-hundred-thousand  dollars  and  saws 
forty-million  feet  of  lumber  a  year.  L.  L.  Hunter  is  secretary,  E.  B.  Grandin 
is  treasurer  and  Hon.  J.  B.  White,  formerly  a  member  of  the  Legislature  from 
Warren  county,  is  general  manager.  As  Commander  of  the  Grand  Army  of 
the  Republic  in  Pennsylvania,  Judge  Darte  succeeding  him  this  year,  Captain 
Cummings  is  favorably  known  to  veterans  over  the  entire  state.  He  is  a  man 
of  fine  attainments,  broad  views  and  noble  traits — a  man  who  sizes  up  to  a 
high  ideal,  who  can  be  trusted  and  whose  friendship  "does  not  shrink  in  the 
wash." 

Taylor  &  Satterfield  began  operations  in  the  lower  fields  in  1870,  secured 
much  of  the  finest  territory  in  Butler  and  became  one  of  the  wealthiest  firms  in 
the  oil-region.  Harvesters  rather  than  sowers,  their  usual  policy  was  to  buy 
lands  tested  by  one  or  more  wells  and  avoid  the  risk  of  wildcatting.  In  this 

16 


232  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

way  they  acquired  productive  farms  in  every  part  of  the  district,  which  yielded 
thousands  of  barrels  a  day  when  fully  developed.  Their  transactions  footed 
up  many  millions  yearly.  They  established  banks  at  Petrolia  and  Millerstown, 
employed  an  army  of  drillers  and  pumpers  and  clerks  and  were  always  ready 
fora  big  purchase  that  promised  fat  returns.  In  company  with  Vandergrift  & 
Forman,  John  Pitcairn  and  Fisher  Brothers,  they  built  the  Fairview  Pipe  Line 
from  Argyle  to  Brady,  the  nucleus  of  the  magnificent  National-Transit  system 
of  oil-transportation.  Captain  J.  J.  Vandergrift,  George  V.  Forman  and  John 
Pitcairn  were  associated  with  them  in  their  gigantic  producing-operations, 
which  in  1879  extended  to  the  Bradford  field  and  grew  to  such  magnitude  that 
the  Union  Oil-Company  was  formed  in  1881,  with  five-millions  capital.  The 
Union  was  almost  uniformly  successful,  owning  big  wells  and  paying  big  divi- 
dends. In  1883  it  paid  Forman  a  million  dollars  for  his  separate  holdings  in 
Allegany  county,  up  to  that  date  the  largest  individual  sale  in  the  region.  All 
its  properties  were  sold  to  the  Forest  Oil-Company  and  the  Union  was  dis- 
solved, Taylor  retiring  and  Satterfield  continuing  to  assist  in  the  management 
some  months. 

Hascal  L.  Taylor  was  first  known  in  Oildom  as  a  member  of  the  firm  of 
Taylor  &  Day,  Fredonia,  N.  Y.,  whose  "buckboards  "  had  a  tremendous  sale 
in  Venango,  Clarion,  Armstrong  and  Butler.  He  lived  at  Petrolia  several 
years,  having  charge  of  the  office  of  Taylor  &  Satterfield  and  general  over- 
sight of  the  Argyle  Savings  Bank.  After  his  retirement  from  the  oil-business 
with  an  ample  fortune  he  lived  at  Buffalo,  speculated  in  real-estate  and  pur- 
chased miles  of  Florida  lands.  He  died  last  year,  as  he  was  arranging  to  erect 
a  fifteen-story  office-block  in  Buffalo.  Mr.  Taylor  was  of  medium  height  and 
stout  build,  energetic,  resourceful  and  notable  in  the  busy  world  of  petroleum. 
His  only  son,  Emory  G.,  clerked  in  the  bank  at  Petrolia,  engaged  in  manufac- 
turing at  Williamsport  a  year  or  two  and  removed  to  Buffalo  before  his  father's 
death.  He  and  his  sister  inherited  the  estate. 

John  Satterfield,  a  man  of  heart  and  brain,  imposing  in  stature,  frank  in 
speech  and  square  in  his  dealings,  was  a  Mercer  boy.  He  served  four  years 
in  a  regiment  organized  at  Greenville  and  opened  a  grocery  at  Pithole  in 
1865,  with  James  A.  Waugh  as  partner.  Selling  the  remnants  of  the  grocery  in 
1867,  he  superintended  wells  at  Tarr  Farm  three  years  and  went  to  Parker  in 
1870.  His  work  in  the  Butler  field  increased  his  excellent  reputation  for  hon- 
esty and  enterprise.  He  married  Miss  Matilda  Martin,  of  Allentown,  lived 
four  years  at  Millerstown,  removed  to  Titusville  and  built  an  elegant  house  on 
Delaware  avenue,  Buffalo.  When  the  Union  Oil-Company's  accounts  were 
closed,  the  books  balanced  and  the  assets  transferred  to  the  Forest  he  engaged 
in  banking.  He  was  vice-president  of  the  Third  National  Bank  of  Buffalo  and 
president  of  the  Fidelity  Trust  Company,  whose  new  bank-building  is  the 
boast  of  the  Bison  City.  George  V.  Forman  and  Thomas  L.  McFarland  joined 
him  in  the  Fidelity.  Mr.  McFarland,  formerly  cashier  of  the  bank  at  Petrolia 
and  secretary  of  the  Union  Company,  is  exceedingly  affable,  capable  and  popu- 
lar. Failing  health  induced  Mr.  Satterfield  to  go  on  a  trip  designed  to  include 
France,  the  Mediterranean  Sea  and  the  warmer  countries  of  the  east.  With 
his  brother-in-law,  Dr.  T.  J.  Martin,  he  reached  Paris,  took  seriously  ill  and 
died  on  April  sixth,  1894,  in  his  fifty-fourth  year.  Besides  his  wife,  who  was 
on  the  ocean  hastening  to  his  bedside  when  the  end  came,  he  left  one  son  and 
one  daughter.  Dr.  Martin  cremated  the  body,  pursuant  to  the  wish  of  the 
deceased,  and  brought  the  ashes  home  for  interment.  Charitable  and  unosten- 


ON  THE  SOUTHERN   TRAIL.  233 

tatious,  upright  and   active,  all  men   liked  and  trusted  "Jack"  Satterfield, 
whom  old  friends  miss  sadly  and  remember  tenderly. 

The  sinless  land  some  of  his  friends  have  enter'd  long  ago, 

Some  others  stay  a  little  while  to  struggle  here  below  ; 

But,  be  the  conflict  short  or  long,  life's  battle  will  be  won 

And  lovingly  he'll  welcome  us  when  earthly  toil  is  done. 

Nor  will  our  joy  be  less  sincere — we'll  slap  him  on  the  back, 

Clasp  his  brave  hand  and  warmly  say :  "We're  glad  to  see  you,  Jack  !" 
The  Forest  Oil-Company,  into  which  the  Union  was  merged,  reckons  its 
capital  by  millions,  numbers  its  wells  by  thousands  and  is  at  the  head  of  pro- 
ducing companies.     Its  operations  cover  five  states.     The  company  has  hun- 
dreds of  wells  and  farms  in  Pennsylvania,  operates  extensively  in  Ohio,  is 
developing  large  interests  in  Kansas  and  seems  certain  to  place  Kentucky  and 
Tennessee  high  up  in  the  petroleum-galaxy.     From  its  inception  as  a  Limited 
Company  the  management  has  been  progressive  and  efficient.     To  meet  the 
increasing  demands  of  new  sections  the  original  company  was  closed  out  and 
the  present  one  incorporated,  with  Captain  Vandergrift  as  president  and  W.  J. 
Young  as  vice-president  and  general  manager. 
Mr.  Young,  who  was  also  elected  treasurer  in 
1890,  was  peculiarly  fitted  for  his  responsible 
duties  by  long  experience  and  executive  ability. 
Born  and  educated  in   Pittsburg,  he  entered 
the  employ  of  a  leather-merchant  in  1856,  spent 
six  years  in  the  establishment  and  in  1862  went 
to  Oil  City  to  take  charge  of  the  forwarding 
and  storage    business  of  John  and    William      I 
Hanna.     The   Hannas  owned  the  steamboat 
Allegheny  Belle  No.  4  and  Hanna's  wharf,  the 
site  of  the  National-Transit  machine-shops  in 
the  Third  Ward.     Captain  John  Hanna  dying, 
John  Burgess  &  Co.  bought  the  firm's  storage 
interests  and  admitted  Young  as  a  partner. 

Burgess  &  Co.  sold  to  Fisher  Brothers,  who  w  }   YOUNG 

used  the  wharf  and  yard  for  shipping  and  ap- 
pointed Mr.  Young  their  financial  agent.  How  capably  he  filled  the  place 
every  operator  on  Oil  Creek  can  attest.  He  and  John  J.  Fisher,  under  the 
name  of  Young  &  Co.,  bought  and  shipped  crude-oil  in  bulk-barges.  His 
relations  with  the  Fishers  ceased  in  1872  with  his  appointment  as  book-keeper 
of  the  Oil-City  Savings  Bank.  Elected  cashier  of  the  Oil-City  Trust  Company 
in  1874,  he  was  afterwards  vice-president  and  president,  holding  the  latter  office 
until  1891.  John  Pitcairn  retiring  from  the  firm  of  Vandergrift,  Pitcairn  &  Co., 
he  purchased  an  interest  in  the  business.  The  firm  of  Vandergrift,  Young  & 
Co.  was  organized  and  sold  its  property  to  the  Forest  Oil-Company,  of  which 
Mr.  Young  was  one  of  the  incorporators  and  chairman.  The  business  of  the 
Forest  necessitated  his  removal  to  Pittsburg  in  1889.  He  is  president  of  the 
Washington  Oil-Company  and  the  Taylorstown  Natural-Gas  Company  and  has 
his  offices  in  the  Vandergrift  building,  on  Fourth  avenue.  During  his  twenty- 
seven  years'  residence  in  Oil  City  he  was  active  in  promoting  the  welfare  of  the 
community.  In  1866  he  married  Miss  Morrow,  sister-in-law  and  adopted 
daughter  of  Captain  Vandergrift.  Two  daughters,  one  the  wife  of  Lieutenant 
P.  E.  Pierce,  West  Point,  N.  Y.,  and  the  other  a  young  lady  residing  with  her 
parents,  blessed  the  happy  union.  The  hospitable  home  at  Oil  City  was  a 


234  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

delightful  center  of  moral  and  social  influence.  Mr.  Young  represented  the 
First  Ward  nine  years  in  Common  and  Select  Councils  and  was  school-director 
six  years.  He  furthered  every  good  cause  and  was  a  helpful,  honored  citizen. 
Now  at  the  meridian  of  life,  his  judgment  matured  and  his  acute  perceptions 
quickened,  young  in  heart  and  earnest  in  spirit,  a  wider  sphere  enlarges  his 
opportunities.  Of  W.  J.  Young,  true  and  tried,  faithful  and  competent,  a  loyal 
friend  and  prudent  counsellor,  it  can  never  be  said  :  "Thou  art  weighed  in  the 
balance  and  found  wanting." 

Fairview,  charmingly  located  two  miles  south-west  of  Petrolia,  was  on  one 
side  of  the  greased  streak.  James  M.  Lambing's  gas-well  a  mile  west  lighted 
and  heated  the  town,  but  vapor-fuel  and  pretty  scenery  could  not  offset  the 
lack  of  oil  and  the  dog-in-the-manger  policy  of  greedy  land-holders.  Portly 
Major  Adams — under  the  sod  for  years — built  a  spacious  hotel,  which  Wil- 
liam Lecky,  Isaac  Reineman,  William  Fleming  and  kindred  spirits  patronized. 
A  mile-and-a-half  east  of  Fairview  and  as  far  south  of  Petrolia,  on  a  branch  of 
Bear  Creek,  the  Cooper  well  originated  Karns  City  in  June  of  1872.  S.  D. 
Karns  laid  down  eight-thousand  dollars  for  the  supposed  dry-hole  on  the 
McClymonds  farm,  drilled  forty  feet  and  struck  a  hundred-barreler.  Cooper 
Brothers  finished  the  second  well — it  flowed  two-hundred  barrels  for  months — 
on  the  Saturday  preceding  "the  thirty-day  shut-down."  Tabor  &  Thompson 
and  Captain  Grace  had  moguls  on  the  Riddle  and  Story  farms.  Big-hearted, 
open-handed  "Tommy"  Thompson— a  whiter  man  ne'er  drew  breath— oper- 
ated profitably  in  Butler  and  McKean  and  was  active  in  the  movements  that 
made  1872-3  memorable  to  oil-producers.  The  biggest  well  in  the  bunch  was 
A.  J.  Salisbury's  five-hundred-barrel  spouter  on  the  J.  B.  Campbell  farm,  in 
January  of  1873.  Salisbury  conducted  the  favorite  Empire  House,  which  per- 
ished in  the  noon-day  blaze  that  extinguished  two-thirds  of  Karns  City  in 
December  of  1874.  One  day  he  bought  a  wagon-load  of  potatoes  from  a  ver- 
dant native,  who  dumped  the  tubers  into  the  cellar  and  was  given  a  check  for 
the  purchase.  He  gazed  at  the  check  long  and  earnestly,  finally  breaking  out : 
"  Vot  for  you  gives  me  dose  paper?"  Salisbury  explained  that  it  was  payment 
for  the  murphies.  "  Mein  Gott!"  ejaculated  the  ruralist,  "you  dinks  me  von 
tarn  fool  to  take  dot  papers  for  mein  potatoes?"  The  proprietor  strove  to 
enlighten  the  farmer,  telling  him  to  step  across  the  street  to  the  bank  and  get 
his  money.  "  I  see  nein  monish  there,"  replied  the  innocent,  looking  at  John 
Shirley's  hardware-store,  part  of  which  a  bank  occupied.  Discussing  finance 
with  the  rustic  would  be  useless,  so  "Jack"  sent  the  hotel-clerk  for  the  cash 
and  counted  it  out  in  crisp  documents  bearing  the  serpentine  autograph  of 
General  Spinner. 

Vandergrift  &  Forman  paid  ninety-thousand  dollars  for  the  McCafferty 
farm,  a  mile  south-west  of  Karns  City.  Mr.  Forman  closed  the  deal,  going  to 
the  house  with  a  lawyer  and  a  New- York  draft.  The  honest  granger,  not  fa- 
miliar with  bank-drafts,  would  not  receive  anything  except  actual  greenbacks. 
The  parties  journeyed  to  the  county-seat  to  convert  the  draft  into  legal-tenders, 
which  the  seller  of  the  property  carried  home.  William  McCafferty  was  a 
thrifty  tiller  of  the  soil  and  cultivated  his  farm  thoroughly.  He  bought  a  home 
at  Greenville,  near  John  Benninghoff's,  put  his  money  in  Government  bonds 
and  died  in  1880.  Half  the  farm  was  fine  territory  and  repaid  its  cost  several 
times.  One-twentieth  of  the  price  in  1873  would  be  good  value  to-day  for  the 
broad  acres.  For  John  Blaney's  farm,  adjoining  the  McCafferty,  Melville, 
Payne  &  Fleming  put  up  fifteen-thousand  dollars,  bored  a  well  and  sold  out  to 


ON  THE  SOUTHERN   TRAIL.  235 

Vandergrift  &  Forman  at  fifty-thousand.  The  Rob  Roy  well,  on  the  McCly- 
monds  farm,  produced  forty-thousand  barrels  of  fourth-sand  oil,  while  a  dry 
hole  was  sunk  thirty  yards  away.  Colonel  Woodward,  Mattison  &  McDonald, 
Tack  &  Moorhead  and  John  Markham  owned  wells  good  for  thirty  to  eight- 
hundred  barrels.  A  cloud  of  dry-holes  encompassed  the  May  Marshall,  on  the 
Wallace  farm.  Haysville,  on  the  Thomas  Hays  farm,  had  a  brief  run,  a  harvest 
of  small  strikes  and  dusters  nipping  it  off  prematurely.  The  epitaph  of  the 
Philadelphia  baby  would  about  fit : 

"  Died  when  young  and  full  of  promise, 
Our  own  little  darling  Thomas  ; 
We  can't  have  things  here  to  please  us— 
He  has  gone  to  dwell  with  Jesus." 

Branching  off  a  mile  south  of  Karns  City,  on  January  thirty-first,  1873,  the 
first  well— one-hundred  and  fifty  barrels— was  finished  on  the  Moore  &  Hepler 
farm  of  three-hundred  acres.  Another  in  February  strengthened  "the  belt 
theory,"  belief  in  which  induced  C.  D.  Angell,  John  L.  McKinney, Phillips 
Brothers  and  O.  K.  Warren  to  form  a  company  and  test  the  trac  t.  Their  faith 
was  recompensed  ' '  an  hundred  fold  "  by  an  array  of  dandy  wells  and  the  un- 
folding of  Angelica.  Operaters  were  feeling  their  way  steadfastly.  Two  miles 
south-east  of  Angelica,  on  the  Simon  Barnhart  farm,  Messimer  &  Backus' s  wild- 
cat—also a  February  plant — pumped  eight  barrels  a  day.  Shreve  &  Kingsley's, 
on  the  Stewart  farm,  a  mile  north-east,  found  good  sand  and  flowed  one-hun- 
dred-and-forty  barrels,  in  April,  1873.  The  fickle  tide  turned  in  that  direction 
and  Millerstown,  a  dingy,  pokey  hamlet  on  a  side-elevation  in  Donegal  town- 
ship, a  half-mile  south-east  of  the  Shreve-spouter,  was  on  everybody's  lips. 
Some  persons  and  some  communities  have  greatness  thrust  upon  them  and 
Millerstown  was  of  this  brood.  The  natives  awakened  one  April  morning  to 
find  their  settlement  invaded  by  the  irrepressible  oilmen. 

For  sixty  years  the  quiet  hamlet  of  Barnhart's  Mills — a  colony  of  Barnharts 
settled  in  Donegal  when  the  nineteenth  century  was  in  its  teens— stuck  con- 
tentedly in  the  old  rut,  "the  world  unknowing,  by  the  world  unknown."  It 
consisted  chiefly  of  log-houses,  looking  sufficiently  antiquated  to  have  been 
imported  in  William  Penn's  good  ship  Welcome.  A  church,  a  school,  a  black- 
smith-shop, a  grocery,  a  general  store  and  a  tavern  had  existed  from  time 
immemorial.  A  grist-mill  ground  wheat  and  the  name  of  Barnhart's  Mills  was 
adopted  by  the  post-office  authorities.  It  yielded  to  Millerstown  and  finally  to 
Chicora.  The  two-hundred  villagers  went  to  bed  at  dark  and  breakfasted  by 
candle-light  in  winter.  A  birth,  a  marriage  or  a  funeral  aroused  profound 
interest.  At  last  news  of  oil  "from  Parker  down"  was  heard  occasionally. 
Petrolia  arose  and  the  Millerites  shivered  with  apprehension.  Was  the  petro- 
leum-wave to  submerge  their  peaceful  homes  ?  The  Shreve  well  answered  the 
query  affirmatively  and  the  invasion  was  not  delayed.  Crowds  came,  proper- 
ties changed  hands,  old  houses  were  razed  and  by  July  the  ancient  borough 
was  disguised  as  a  modern  oil-town.  Dr.  Book  built  a  grand  hotel,  Taylor  & 
Satterfield  established  a  bank,  the  United  and  Relief  Pipe-Lines  opened  offices, 
the  best  firms  were  represented  and  "on  to  Millerstown"  was  the  shibboleth 
of  the  hour.  McFarland  &  Co.'s  seventy-barrel  well  on  the  Thorn  farm,  a 
mile  north-east  of  town,  the  third  in  the  district,  fed  the  oily  flame.  Dr. 
James,  on  R.  Barnhart's  lands,  finished  the  fourth,  an  eighty-barreler,  in  June, 
a  half-mile  west  of  the  Shreve  &  Kingsley,  which  Clark  &  Timblin  bought  for 
twenty-thousand  dollars.  Wyatt,  Fertig  &  Hammond's  mammoth  flowed  one- 


236  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

thousand  barrels  a  day  !  Col.  Wyatt  was  a  real  Virginian,  chivalric,  educated 
and  high-strung.  Hon.  John  Fertig  was  a  pioneer  on  Oil  Creek  and  had  oper- 
ated at  Foxburg  with  John  W.  Hammond.  The  Wyatt  spouted  for  months. 

McKeown  &  Morissey  drilled  rib-ticklers  on  the  Nolan  farm.  Warden  & 
Frew,  F.  Prentice,  Taylor  &  Satterfield,  Captain  Grace,  John  Preston,  Cook  & 
Goldsboro,  Samuel  P.  Boyer,  C.  D.  Angell  and  multitudes  more  scored  big 
hits.  McKinney  Brothers  &  Galey  secured  the  Hemphill  and  Frederick  farms, 
on  which  they  drilled  scores  of  splendid  wells.  James  M.  Lambing  had  a 
chunk  near  the  Wyatt,  with  Col.  Brady  next  door.  Lee  &  Plumer,  fresh  from 
their  triumphs  in  Clarion,  leased  the  Diviner  farm,  two  miles  south-west  of  Mil- 
lerstown,  for  two-hundred  dollars  an  acre  bonus  and  one-eighth  royalty.  Their 
first  well  flowed  fifteen-hundred  barrels  and  they  sold  to  Taylor  &  Satterfield 
for  ninety-thousand  dollars  after  its  production  paid  the  bonus  and  the  drilling. 
Henry  Greene  drilled  on  the  Johnson  farm,  two  miles  straight  south  of  the  vil- 
lage, and  P.  M.  Shannon's,  on  the  Boyle,  was  the  lion  of  the  eastern  belt.  A 
dry  strip  divided  the  field  into  two  productive  lines.  P.  H.  Burchfield  opened 
the  Gillespie  farm  and  Joseph  Overy  touched  the  Mead,  four  miles  south  of  Mil- 
lerstown,  for  a  two-hundred-barreler  that  installed  St.  Joe.  Dr.  Hunter,  of  Pitts- 
burg,  monkeyed  a  well  on  the  Gillespie  for  many  weeks,  inaugurating  the 
odious  ' '  mystery ' '  racket.  Millerstown  was  a  peach  of  the  most  approved  pat- 
tern, holding  its  own  bravely  until  Bradford  overwhelmed  the  southern  region. 
A  narrow-gauge  railroad  connected  it  with  Parker  in  1876.  Fire  in  1875  swept 
away  the  central  portion  of  the  town  and  blotted  out  seven  lives.  Oil  has 
receded,  the  operators  have  departed  and  the  town  is  once  more  a  placid  coun- 
try village. 

The  Barnhart  and  Hemphill  farms  yielded  McKinney  Brothers  a  lavish 
return,  the  wells  averaging  fifty  to  three-hundred  barrels  month  after  month. 
The  two  brothers,  John  L.  and  J.  C.,  were  not  amateurs  in  oil-matters.  Sons  of 
a  well-to-do  lumberman  and  farmer  in  Warren  county,  they  learned  business- 
methods  in  boyhood  and  were  fitted  by  habit  and  education  to  manage  impor- 
tant enterprises.  Their  connection  with  petroleum  dated  back  to  the  sixties,  in 
the  oldest  districts.  The  knowledge  stored  up  on  Oil  Creek  and  around  Frank- 
lin and  at  Pleasantville  was  of  immense  benefit  in  the  lower  fields.  Organizing 
the  firm  of  McKinney  Brothers  in  1890,  to  operate  at  Parker,  they  kept  pace  with 
the  trend  of  developments  southward.  Millerstown  impressed  them  favorably 
and  they  paid  seventy-thousand  dollars  for  the  Barnhart  and  two  Hemphill 
farms,  two-hundred-and-seventy  acres  in  the  heart  of  the  richest  territory.  John 
Galey  purchased  an  interest  in  the  properties,  which  the  partners  developed 
judiciously.  J.  C.  McKinney  and  Galey  resided  at  Millerstown  to  oversee  the 
numerous  details  of  their  extensive  operations.  In  1877,  H.  L.  Taylor,  John 
Satterfield,  John  Pitcairn  and  the  brothers  formed  the  partnership  known  as 
John  L.  McKinney  &  Co.  It  was  controlled  and  managed  by  the  McKinneys, 
until  the  sale  of  its  interests  to  the  Standard  Oil-Company.  John  L.  and  J.  C. 
McKinney  sold  their  Ohio  lands  and  wells  in  1889  and  their  Pennsylvania  oil- 
properties  in  1890,  since  which  period  they  have  been  associated  with  the  Stand- 
ard in  one  of  its  great  producing  branches,  the  South  Penn  Oil-Company.  Noah 
S.  Clark  is  president  of  the  South  Penn,  with  headquarters  at  Oil  City  and  Pitts- 
burg.  This  company  has  thousands  of  wells  in  Pennsylvania,  Ohio  and  West 
Virginia.  The  wise  policy  that  has  made  the  Standard  the  world's  foremost 
corporation  has  nowhere  been  manifested  more  effectively  than  in  the  formation 
of  such  companies  as  the  Forest  and  the  South  Penn.  Letting  sellers  of  produc- 


ON   THE  SOUTHERN  TRAIL. 


237 


tion  share  in  the  ownership  and  management  of  properties  united  in  one  grand 
system  secures  the  advantages  of  concerted  action,  unlimited  capital,  identity  of 
interest  and  combined  experience.  Thus  men  of  the  highest  skill  join  hands 
for  the  good  of  all,  using  the  latest  appliances,  buying  at  wholesale  for  cash, 
producing  oil  at  the  smallest  cost  and  giving  the  public  the  fruits  of  systematic 
cooperation.  In  this  free  country  "the  poor  man's  back-yard  opens  into  all 
out-doors"  and  many  producers,  like  John  McKeown,  Captain  Jones  "The." 
Barnsdall  and  Michael  Murphy  have  been  conspicuously  successful  going  it 
alone.  Sometimes  a  growl  is  heard  about  monopoly,  centralization  and  the 
octave  of  similar  phrases,  just  as  folks  grumble  at  the  weather,  the  heat  and 
cold  and  think  they  could  run  the  universe  much  better  than  its  Creator  does  it. 
"  Oh,  many  a  wicked  smile  they  smole, 

And  many  a  wink  they  wunk  ; 
'And,  oh,  it  is  an  awful  thing 

To  think  the  thoughts  they  thunk." 

Hon.  John  L.  McKinney's  talent  for  business  displayed  itself  in  youth. 
"The  boy's  the  father  to  the  man"  and  at  sixteen  he  assumed  charge  of  his 
father's  accounts,  superintending  the  sale  of  lumber  and  farm-products  three 
years.  At  nineteen,  in  the  fall  of  1861,  he  drilled  his  first  well,  a  dry-hole  south 
of  Franklin.  Two  leases  on  Oil  Creek  fared  better  and  in  the  spring  he  pur- 


JOHN  L.   MCKINNEY. 


J.    C.    MCKINNEY, 


chased  one-third  of  a  drilling  well  and  lease  on  the  John  McClintock  farm,  near 
Rouseville.  The  well  was  spring-poled  three-hundred  feet,  horse-power  put  it 
to  four -hundred  and  an  engine  to  five-hundred,  at  which  depth  it  flowed  six- 
hundred  barrels,  lasting  two  years,  lessening  slowly  and  producing  enough  oil 
to  enrich  the  owners.  Young  McKinney  worked  his  turn,  "  kicking  the  pole" 
all  summer  and  visiting  his  home  in  Warren  county  when  steam  was  substituted 
for  human  and  equine  muscle.  During  his  absence  the  sand  was  prodded,  the 
golden  stream  responded  and  his  partner  sold  out  for  a  round  sum,  taking  no 


238  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

note  of  his  share  !  He  heard  of  the  strike  and  found  the  purchasers  in  full  pos- 
session upon  his  return.  His  contract  had  not  been  recorded,  one  day  remained 
to  file  it  with  the  register  and  he  saved  his  claim  by  a  few  hours  !  He  bought 
interests  on  Cherry  Run  that  profited  him  two-hundred  thousand  dollars,  in  1864 
leased  large  tracts  in  Greene  county  and  in  1865  removed  to  Philadelphia.  He 
operated  on  Benninghoff  Run  in  1866,  the  crash  of  1867  swept  away  his  gains 
and  he  began  again  "  at  the  top  of  the  ground."  With  his  younger  brother, 
J.  C.  McKinney,  he  drilled  at  Pleasantville  in  1868  and  the  next  year  located  at 
Parker's  Landing,  operating  constantly  and  managing  an  agency  for  the  sale  of 
Gibbs  &  Sterrett  machinery.  Success  crowded  upon  him  in  1871  and  in  1873 
McKinney  Brothers  &  Galey  were  the  leaders  in  the  Millerstown  field.  Mrs. 
McKinney,  a  beautiful  and  accomplished  woman,  died  in  1894.  Mr.  McKinney 
built  an  elegant  home  at  Titusville  and  he  has  been  an  influential  citizen  of 
"the  Queen  City  of  Oildom  "  for  twenty  years.  He  is  president  of  the  Com- 
mercial Bank  and  a  heavy  stockholder  in  local  industries.  He  has  resisted 
pressing  demands  for  his  services  in  public  office,  preferring  the  private  station, 
yet  participating  actively  in  politics.  John  L.  McKinney  is  earnest  and  manly 
everywhere,  steadfast  in  his  friendships,  true  to  his  professions,  liberal  and 
honorable  always. 

J.  C.  McKinney  engaged  with  an  engineer-corps  of  the  Pennsylvania  Rail- 
road Company  in  1861,  at  the  age  of  seventeen,  to  survey  lines  southward 
from  Garland,  on  the  Philadelphia  &  Erie  Road.  The  survey  ending  at  Frank- 
lin in  1863,  he  left  the  corps  and  started  a  lumber-yard  at  Oil  City.  His  father 
was  a  lumberman  at  Pittsfield,  Warren  county,  and  the  youth  of  nineteen  knew 
every  branch  of  the  business  thoroughly.  He  opened  a  yard  at  Franklin  in 
1864,  resided  there  a  number  of  years  and  in  1868  married  Miss  Agnes  E. 
Moore.  His  first  well,  "drilled  at  Foster  in  1865,  produced  moderately.  In 
company  with  C.  D.  Angell,  he  drilled  on  Scrubgrass  Island— Mr.  Angell 
changed  the  name  to  Belle  Island  for  his  daughter  Belle— in  1866  and  at  Pleas- 
antville in  1868  with  his  brother,  John  L.  Operating  for  heavy-oil  at  Franklin 
in  1869-70,  he  sold  his  wells  to  Egbert,  Mackey  &  Tafft  and  settled  at  Parker's 
Landing  in  1870.  The  firm's  operations  in  Butler  county  requiring  his  personal 
attention,  he  built  a  house  and  resided  at  Millerstown  several  years.  There  he 
worked  zealously,  purchasing  blocks  of  land  and  drilling  a  legion  of  prolific 
wells.  Upon  the  subsidence  of  the  Butler  field  he  removed  to  Titusville,  buy- 
ing and  remodeling  the  Windsor  mansion,  which  he  made  one  of  the  finest 
residences  in  the  oil-region.  He  assists  in  managing  the  South  Penn  Oil-Com- 
pany, to  which  McKinney  Brothers  disposed  of  their  interests  in  Ohio  and 
Pennsylvania.  In  the  flush  of  healthful  vigor,  wealthy  and  respected,  he  enjoys 
"the  good  the  gods  provide."  He  keeps  fast  horses,  handles  the  ribbons 
skillfully,  can  guide  a  big  enterprise  or  an  untamed  bicycle  deftly,  is  compan- 
ionable and  utterly  devoid  of  affectation.  To  the  McKinneys,  men  of  positive 
character  and  strict  integrity,  the  Roman  eulogy  applies:  "A  pair  of  noble 
brothers." 

"  Plumer's  Ride  to  Diviner"  discounted  Sheridan's  Ride  to  Winchester  in 
the  estimation  of  Millerstown  hustlers.  Various  operators  longed  and  prayed 
for  the  Diviner  farm  of  two  hundred  acres,  two  miles  south  of  Millerstown, 
which  "Ed"  Bennett's  three-hundred  barrel  well  on  the  Boyle  farm  rendered 
very  desirable.  The  old,  childless  couple  owning  it  declined  to  lease  or  sell, 
not  wishing  to  move  out  of  the  old  house.  Lee  &  Plumer  were  on  the  anxious 
seat  with  the  rest  of  the  fraternity.  Plumer  overheard  a  big  operator  tell  his 


ON  THE  SOUTHERN  TRAIL. 


239 


foreman  one  morning  to  offer  three-hundred  dollars  an  acre  for  the  farm. 
"Fred"  lost  not  a  moment.  Ordering  his  two-twenty  horse  to  be  saddled 
instantly,  he  galloped  to  the  Diviner  domicile  in  hot  haste  and  said  :  "I'll 
give  you  two-hundred  dollars  an  acre  and  one  eighth  the  oil  for  your  land  and 
let  you  stay  in  the  house  !"  The  aged  pair  consulted  a  moment,  accepted  the 
offer  and  signed  an  agreement  to  transfer  the  property  in  three  days.  The  ink 
was  not  dry  when  the  foreman  rode  up,  but  "  Fred  "  met  him  in  the  yard  with 
a  smile  that  expressed  the  gospel-hymn  :  "Too  late,  too  late,  ye  cannot  enter 
in!"  The  first  well  repaid  the  whole  outlay  in  thirty  days,  when  Taylor  & 
Satterfield  paid  ninety-thousand  dollars  for  Lee  &  Plumer's  holdings,  a  snug 
sum  to  rake  in  from  a  two-mile  horseback-ride.  With  a  fine  sense  of  appre- 
ciation the  well  was  labeled  "  Plumer's  Ride  to  Diviner,"  a  board  nailed  to  the 
walking-beam  bearing  the  protracted  title  in  artistic  capitals. 

The  Millerstown  fire  ended  seven  human  lives,  four  of  them  at  Dr.  Book's 
Central  Hotel.  A.  G.  Oliver,  of  Kane  City,  was  roasted  in  the  room  occupied 
by  me  the  previous  night.  Norah  Canty,  a  waitress,  descended  the  stairs, 
returned  for  her  trunk  and  was  burned  to  a  cinder.  Nellie  McCarthy  jumped 
from  a  high  window  to  the  street,  fracturing  both  legs  and  sustaining  injuries 
that  crippled  her  permanently.  In  loss  of  life  the  fire  ranked  next  to  the 
dreadful  tragedy  of  the  burning-well  at  Rouseville. 

P.  M.  Shannon,  first  burgess  of  Millerstown,  had  a  fashion  of  saluting  inti- 
mate friends  with  the  query:  "Where  are  we  now?"  Possibly  this  was  the 
origin  of  the  popular  phrase,  "Where  are  we  at?"  A  zealous  officer  arrested 
a  drunken  loafer  one  afternoon.  The  fellow  struggled  to  get  free  and  the  offi- 
cer halted  a  wagon  to  haul  the  obstrep- 
erous drunk  to  the  lock-up.  The  pris- 
oner was  laid  on  his  back  in  the  wagon 
and  his  captor  tried  to  hold  him  down. 
A  crowd  gathered  and  the  burgess  got 
aboard  to  assist  the  peeler.  He  was 
holding  the  feet  of  the  law-breaker, 
with  his  back  to  the  end-board,  at  the 
instant  the  wheels  struck  a  plank-cross- 
ing. The  shock  keeled  Shannon  back- 
wards over  the  end-board  into  the  deep, 
vicious  mud  !  The  spectators  thought 
of  shedding  tears  at  the  sad  plight  of 
their  chief  magistrate,  who  sank  at  full 
length  nearly  out  of  sight.  As  he  raised 
his  head  a  ragged  urchin  bawled  out : 
"Where  are  we  now?"  The  laugh 
that  ensued  was  a  risible  earthquake  and 
thenceforth  the  expression  had  unlimited  circulation  in  the  lower  districts. 

The  Millerstown  field  produced  ten-thousand  barrels  a  day  at  its  prime  and 
the  temptation  to  enlarge  the  productive  area  even  St.  Anthony,  had' he  been 
an  oil-operator,  would  have  found  it  hard  to  resist.  A  half-mile  west,  at  the 
Brick  Church,  J.  A.  Irons  punched  a  hole  and  started  a  hardware-store  that 
hatched  out  Irons  City.  St.  Joe,  where  two-hundred  lots  were  sold  in  thirty 
days  and  a  beer-jerker's  tent  was  the  first  business-stand,  was  the  outcome  of 
good  wells  on  the  Now,  Meade,  Boyd,  Neff  and  Graham  farms,  four  miles 
south.  Three  miles  farther  dry-holes  blasted  the  budding  hopes  of  Jefferson- 


U'HERE  ARE;  WE  NOW' 


240  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

ville.  Three  miles  south-west  of  Millerstown,  on  an  elevated  site,  Buena  Vista 
bade  fair  to  knock  the  persimmons.  The  territory  exhausted  too  speedily  for 
comfort,  other  points  lured  the  floaters,  hotels  and  stores  stood  empty  and  a 
fire  sent  three-fourths  of  the  neat  little  town  up  in  smoke.  Two  miles  west  the 
Hope  Oil-Company's  Troutman  well,  reported  on  March  twenty-second,  1873, 
"the  biggest  strike  since  'sixty-five,"  flowed  twelve-hundred  barrels.  The 
tools  hung  in  the  hole  seven  months,  by  which  time  the  well  had  produced 
ninety-six-thousand  barrels.  The  gusher  was  on  the  Troutman  farm,  a  patch  of 
rocks  and  stunted  trees  tenanted  by  a  Frenchman.  I.  E.  Dean,  Lecky  & 
Reineman,  Captain  Grace,  Captain  Boyer,  the  Reno  Oil-Company  and  others 
jostled  neck  and  neck  in  the  race  to  drain  the  Ralston,  Harper,  Starr,  Jenkins 
and  Troutman  lands.  The  result  was  a  series  of  spouters  that  aggregated  nine- 
thousand  barrels  a  day.  Phillips  Brothers  paid  eighty-thousand  dollars  for  the 
Starr  farm  and  trebled  their  money  in  a  year.  William  K.  Vandergrift's  Black- 
hawk  was  a  five-hundred  barreler  and  dozens  more  swelled  the  production  and 
the  excitement.  The  day  before  Husselton  &  Thompson's  seven-hundred  bar- 
reler, on  the  Gruber  farm,  struck  the  sand  the  boiler  exploded.  Two  men 
were  standing  on  a  tank  discussing  politics.  They  saw  a  ton  of  iron  heading 
directly  towards  them,  concluded  to  postpone  the  argument  and  leaped  from 
the  tank  as  the  flying  mass  tore  off  half  the  roof.  The  Ralston  farm  evoluted 
the  embryo  town  of  Batesville,  named  for  the  late  Joseph  Bates,  of  Oil  City, 
and  Modoc  planted  its  wigwams  on  the  Starr  and  Sutton. 

Modoc  stood  at  the  top  of  the  class  for  mud.  The  man  who  found  a  gold- 
dollar  in  a  can  of  tomatoes  and  denounced  the  grocer  for  selling  adulterated 
goods  would  have  had  no  reason  to  grumble  at  the  mud  around  Modoc.  It 
was  pure,  unmixed  and  unstinted.  The  voyager  who,  in  the  spring  or  fall  of 
1873,  accomplished  the  trip  from  Troutman  to  the  frontier  wells  without  ex- 
hausting his  stock  of  profanity  earned  a  free-pass  to  the  happy  hunting-grounds. 
Twenty  balloon-structures  were  erected  by  May  first  and  a  red- headed  dis- 
penser of  stimulants  answered  to  the  title  of  "Captain  Jack."  Modoc  was  not 
a  Tammany  offshoot,  but  the  government  had  an  Indian  war  on  hand  and  red- 
skinned  epithets  prevailed.  The  town  soon  boasted  three  stores,  four  hotels, 
liveries  and  five-hundred  people.  By  and  by  the  spouters  wilted  badly, 
degenerating  into  pumpers.  On  a  cold,  rainy  night  in  the  autumn  of  1874  fire 
started  in  Max  Elasser's  clothing-store  and  one-half  the  town  was  absent  at 
dawn  next  morning.  Biting  wind  and  drenching  showers  added  to  the  sadness 
of  the  dismal  scene.  Women  and  children,  weeping  and  homeless,  crouched 
in  the  fields  until  daylight  and  shelter  arrived.  That  was  the  last  chapter  in 
the  history  of  Modoc.  The  American  Hotel  and  a  few  houses  escaped  the 
flames,  but  the  destroyed  buildings  were  not  replaced.  It  would  puzzle  a 
tourist  now  to  find  an  atom  of  Modoc  or  the  wells  that  vegetated  about  the 
Troutman  whale. 

Two  miles  south  of  Modoc  the  McClelland  farm  made  a  bold  effort  to  out- 
shine the  Troutman.  Phillips  Brothers  owned  the  biggest  wells,  luscious  fel- 
lows that  salt-water  killed  off  prematurely.  They  paid  forty-five-thousand  dol- 
lars for  the  Stahl  &  Benedict  No.  i  well.  The  farmer  leased  the  tract  to  George 
Nesbit  and  John  Preston.  Nesbit  placed  timbers  for  a  rig  on  the  ground  and 
entrenched  a  force  of  men  behind  a  fence.  Preston's  troops  scaled  the  fence, 
dislodged  the  enemy,  carried  the  timbers  off  the  premises,  built  a  rig  and 
drilled  a  well.  Such  disputes  were  liable  to  occur  from  the  ignorance  or  knav- 
ery of  the  natives,  some  of  whom  leased  the  same  land  to  several  parties.  In 


ON  THE  SOUTHERN  TRAIL.  241 

one  of  these  struggles  for  possession  Obadiah  Haymaker  was  shot  dead  at 
Murraysville,  near  Pittsburg.  Milton  Weston,  a  Chicago  millionaire,  who 
hired  and  armed  the  attacking  party,  was  sent  to  the  penitentiary  for  man- 
slaughter. Haymaker  was  pleasant,  sociable  and  worthy  of  a  better  fate. 

David  Morrison  leased  ten  acres  of  the  Jamison  farm,  three  miles  below 
Modoc  and  seven  south  of  Petrolia,  at  one-fiftieth  royalty.  The  property  was 
situated  on  Connoquinessing  Creek,  a  tributary  of  Beaver  River,  in  the  bosom 
of  a  rugged  country.  On  August  twenty-fourth,  1872,  the  tools  pricked  the 
sand,  gas  burst  forth  and  oil  flowed  furiously.  The  gas  sought  the  boiler-fire 
and  the  entire  concern  was  speedily  in  a  blaze.  Unlike  many  others  in  the  oil- 
region,  the  Morrison  well  suffered  no  injury  from  the  fire.  It  flowed  three- 
hundred  barrels  a  day  for  a  month  and  in  October  was  sold  to  Taylor  &  Satter- 
field  for  thirty-eight-thousand  dollars.  They  cleaned  out  the  hole,  which  mud 
had  clogged,  restoring  the  yield  to  two-hundred  barrels.  S.  D.  Karns  com- 
pleted the  Dogleg  well,  the  second  in  the  field,  on  Christmas  day,  and  the  third 
early  in  January,  the  two  wells  flowing  seven-hundred  barrels.  John  Preston's 
No.  i,  a  half-mile  northward,  flowed  two-hundred  barrels  on  January  twelfth. 
Preston  was  a  strong-limbed,  black-haired,  courageous  operator,  who  cut  his 
eye-teeth  in  the  upper  fields.  He  augmented  his  pile  at  Parker,  Millerstown 
and  Greece  City,  landing  at  last  in  Washington  county.  He  was  not  averse  to 
a  hand  at  cards  or  a  gamble  in  production.  His  word  was  never  broken  and 
he  vied  with  John  McKeown  and  John  Galey  in  untiring  energy.  A  truer, 
livelier,  braver  lot  of  men  than  the  Butler  oil-operators  never  stepped  on  God's 
green  carpet.  A  mean  tyrant  might  as  well  try  to  climb  into  heaven  on  a 
greased  pole  as  to  keep  them  at  the  bottom  of  the  heap. 

The  first  new  building  on  the  Jamison  farm,  a  frame  drug-store,  was  erected 
on  September  tenth.  Eight-hundred  people  inhabited  Greece  City  by  the  end 
of  December.  Drinking  dens  drove  a  thriving  trade  and  three  hotels  could  not 
stow  away  the  crowds.  J.  H.  Collins  fed  five-hundred  a  day.  Theodore 
Huselton  established  a  bank  and  Rev.  Mr.  Thorne  a  newspaper.  A  post-office 
was  opened  at  New- Year.  Two  pipe-lines  conveyed  oil  to  Butler  and  Brady, 
two  telegraph-offices  rushed  messages,  a  church  blossomed  in  the  spring  and  a 
branch  of  the  West  Penn  Railroad  was  proposed.  Greece  City  combined  the 
muddiness  and  activity  of  Shaffer  and  Funkville  with  the  ambition  of  Reno. 
Fifty  wells  were  drilling  in  February  and  the  surrounding  farms  were  not  per- 
mitted to  "linger  longer,  Lucy,"  than  was  necessary  to  haul  machinery  and  set 
the  walking-beam  sawing  the  atmosphere.  Joseph  Post— a  jolly  Rousevillean, 
who  weighed  two-hundred  pounds,  operated  at  Bradford  and  retired  to  a  farm 
in  Ohio — tested  the  Whitmire  farm,  two  miles  south.  An  extensive  water-well 
was  the  best  the  farm  had  to  offer  and  Boydstown,  built  in  expectation  of  the  oil 
that  never  came,  scampered  off.  The  third  sand  was  only  twelve  to  fifteen  feet 
thick  and  the  wells  declined  with  unprecedented  suddenness.  The  bottom 
seemed  to  drop  out  of  the  territory  in  a  twinkling.  The  town  wilted  like  a 
paper-collar  in  the  dog-days.  Houses  were  torn  down  or  deserted  and  rigs 
carted  to  Millerstown.  In  December  fire  licked  up  three-fourths  of  what 
removals  had  spared,  summarily  ending  Greece  City  at  the  fragile  age  of  thir- 
teen months.  "The  isles  of  Greece,  where  burning  Sappho  loved  and  sung," 
may  have  been  pretty  slick,  but  the  oil  of  Greece  City  would  have  burned  out 
Sappho  in  one  round. 

"  The  meanest  man  I  ever  saw,"  a  Butler  judge  remarked  to  a  company 
of  friends  at  Collins's  Hotel,  "  has  never  appeared  in  my  court  as  a  defendant 


242  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE  OIL. 

and  it  is  lucky  for  him.  As  a  matter  of  course  he  was  a  newspaper  man — a 
rascal  of  a  reporter  for  the  Greece  City  Review,  printed  right  in  this  town,  and 
there  he  stands  !  One  day  he  was  playing  seven-up  with  a  young  lady  and 
guess  what  he  did  ?  He  told  her  that  whenever  she  had  the  jack  of  trumps  it 
was  a  sure  sign  her  lover  was  thinking  of  her.  Then  he  watched  her  and  when- 
ever she  blushed  and  looked  pleased  he  would  lead  a  high  card  and  catch  her 
jack.  A  man  who  would  do  that  would  steal  a  hot  stove  or  write  a  libellous 
joke  about  me."  The  judge  was  a  rare  joker  and  the  young  man  whom  he 
apostrophised  for  fun  didn't  know  a  jack  from  a  load  of  hay. 

Parker,  Martinsburg,  Argyle,  Petrolia,  the  "Cross  Belt,"  Karns  City,  An- 
gelica, Millerstown,  St.  Joe,  Buena  Vista,  Modoc  and  Greece  City  had  passed  in 
review.  The  "belt"  extended  fifteen  miles  and  the  Butler  field  acknowledged 
no  rival.  The  great  Bradford  district  was  about  to  distance  all  competitors  and 
leave  the  southern  region  hopelessly  behind,  yet  operators  did  not  desist  from 
their  efforts  to  discover  an  outlet  below  Greece  City  and  St.  Joe.  Two  miles 
west  of  the  county-seat  Phillips  Brothers  stumbled  upon  the  Baldridge  pool, 
which  produced  largely.  The  old  town  of  Butler,  settled  at  the  beginning  of 
the  century  and  not  remarkable  for  enterprise  until  the  oilmen  shoved  it  for- 
ward, was  dry  territory.  Eastward  pools  of  minor  note  were  revealed.  William 
K.  Vandergrift,  whose  three-hundred-barrel  well  on  the  Pontius  farm  ushered 
in  Buena  Vista's  short-lived  reign,  drilled  at  Saxonburg.  Along  the  West-Penn 
Railroad  fair  wells  encouraged  the  quest.  David  Kirk  entered  Great  Belt  City  in 
the  race  and  the  country  was  punctured  like  a  bicycle-tire  tripping  over  a  road 
strewn  with  tacks  pointing  skyward  and  loaded  for  mischief.  South  of  St.  Joe 
gas  blew  off  and  Spang  &  Chalfant  laid  a  line  from  above  Freeport  to  pipe  the 
stuff  into  their  rolling-mills  at  Pittsburg.  The  search  proceeded  without  big 
surprises,  Bradford  monopolizing  public  interest  and  Butler  jogging  on  quietly 
at  the  rear.  But  the  old  field  had  plenty  of  ginger  and  was  merely  recovering 
some  of  the  breath  expended  in  producing  forty-million  barrels  of  crude.  "I 
smell  a  rat,"  felicitously  observed  Sir  Boyle  Roche,  "and  see  him  floating  in 
the  air."  The  free  play  of  the  drill  could  hardly  fail  to  ferret  out  something 
with  the  smell  of  petroleum  in  the  soap-mine  county,  beyond  the  cut-off  at 
Greece  City  and  Baldridge.  Bradford  was  sliding  down  the  mountain  it  had 
ascended  and  Butler  furnished  the  answer  to  the  conundrum  of  where  to  look 
foe  the  next  fertile  spot. 

Col.  S.  P.  Armstrong,  who  experienced  a  siege  of  hard  luck  in  the  upper 
latitudes,  in  1884  leased  a  portion  of  the  Marshall  farm,  on  Thorn  Creek,  six 
miles  south-west  of  the  town  of  Butler.  Operators  had  been  skirmishing 
around  the  southern  rim  of  the  basin,  looking  for  an  annex  to  the  Baldridge 
pool.  Andrew  Shidemantle  was  drilling  near  the  mouth  of  the  creek,  on  the 
north  bank  of  which  Johnson  &  Co.'s  well,  finished  in  May,  found  plenty  of  sand 
and  salt-water  and  a  taste  of  oil.  More  than  once  Armstrong  was  pressed 
for  funds  to  pay  the  workmen  drilling  the  well  he  began  on  the  little  stream 
and  he  sold  an  interest  to  Boyd  &  Semple.  A  vein  of  oil  was  met  on  June 
twenty-seventh,  gas  ignited  the  rig  and  for  a  week  the  well  burned  fiercely. 
The  flames  were  subdued  finally,  the  well  pumped  and  flowed  one-hundred- 
and-fifty  barrels  a  day  and  No.  2  was  started  fifty  rods  north-east.  Meanwhile 
Phillips  Brothers  set  the  tools  dancing  on  the  Bartlett  farm,  adjoining  the  Mar- 
shall on  the  north.  They  hit  the  sand  on  August  twenty-ninth  and  the  well 
flowed  five-hundred  barrels  next  day.  Drilling  ten  feet  deeper  jagged  a  veri- 
table reservoir  of  petroleum,  the  well  flowing  forty-two-hundred  barrels  on 


ON  THE  SOUTHERN  TRAIL. 


243 


September  fifteenth  !  At  last  Phillips  &  Vanausdall's  spouter  on  Oil  Creek  had 
been  eclipsed.  The  trade  was  "shaken  clear  out  of  its  boots."  Glowing 
promises  of  a  healthy  advance  in  prices  were  frost-bitten.  Scouts  had  been 
hovering  around  and  their  reckoning  was  utterly  at  fault.  Brokers  knew  not 
which  way  to  turn.  Crude  staggered  into  the  ditch  and  speculators  on  the 
wrong  side  of  the  market  went  down  like  the  Louisiana  Tigers  at  Gettysburg. 
The  bull-element  thought  the  geyser  "a  scratch,"  quite  sure  not  to  be  dupli- 
cated, and  all  hands  awaited  impatiently  the  completion  of  Hezekiah  Christie's 
venture  on  a  twenty-five  acre  plot  hugging  the  Phillips  lease.  The  one  redeem- 
ing feature  of  the  situation  was  that  nobody  had  the  temerity  to  remark,  "I 
told  you  so !" 

A  telegraph  office  was  rigged  up  near  the  Phillips  well  in  an  abandoned 
carriage,  one-third  mile  from  the  Christie.  About  it  the  sharp-eyed  scouts 
thronged  night  and  day.  On  October  eleventh  the  Christie  was  known  to  be 


TELEGRAPH-OFFICE  IN   CARRIAGE,   GROUP  OF  SCOUTS  AND  PHILLIPS  WELL,   THORN  CREEK. 

nearing  the  critical  point.  Excitement  was  at  fever-heat  among  the  group  of 
anxious  watchers.  In  the  afternoon  some  knowing-one  reported  that  the  tools 
were  twenty-seven  feet  in  the  sand,  with  no  show  of  oil.  The  scouts  went  to 
condole  with  Christie,  who  was  sitting  in  the  boiler-house,  over  his  supposed 
dry-hole.  One  elderly  scout,  whose  rotundity  made  him  ' '  the  observed  of  all 
observers,"  was  especially  warm  in  his  expressions  of  sympathy.  "That's  all 
right,  Ben,"  said  Christie,  "but  before  night  you'll  be  making  for  the  telegraph- 
office  to  sell  your  oil  at  a  gait  that  will  make  a  euchre-game  on  your  coat-tails 
an  easy  matter."  When  the  scout  had  gone  he  walked  into  the  derrick  and 
asked  his  driller  how  far  he  was  in  the  sand.  "Only  twenty-two  feet  and  we 
are  sure  to  strike  oil  before  three  o'clock.  Those  scouts  don't  know  what 


244  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

they're  talking  about."  Christie  went  back  to  the  boiler-house  and  waited.  It 
was  an  interesting  scene.  About  the  old  buggy  were  the  self-confident  scouts, 
many  of  whom  had  already  wired  their  principals  that  the  well  was  dry.  The 
intervals  between  the  strokes  of  the  drill  appeared  to  be  hours.  At  length  the 
well  began  to  gas.  Then  came  a  low,  rumbling  sound  and  those  about  the 
carriage  saw  a  cloud-burst  of  oil  envelop  the  derrick.  The  Christie  well  was 
in  and  the  biggest  gusher  the  oil-country  had  ever  known  !  The  first  day  it  did 
over  five-thousand  barrels,  seven-thousand  for  several  days  after  torpedoing, 
and  for  a  month  poured  out  a  sea  of  oil.  Christie  refused  one-hundred-thou- 
sand dollars  for  his  monster,  which  cast  the  Cherry  Grove  gushers  completely 
into  the  shade.  Phillips  No.  3,  four-hundred  barrels,  Conners  No.  i,  thirty- 
seven-hundred,  and  Phillips  No.  2,  twenty-five  hundred,  were  added  to  the 
string  on  October  eighteenth,  nineteenth  and  twenty-first.  Crude  tumbled,  the 
bears  pranced  wildly  and  everybody  wondered  if  Thorn  Creek  had  further 
surprises  up  its  sleeve.  Bret  Harte's  "heathen  Chinee"  with  five  aces  was 
less  of  an  enigma. 

All  this  time  Colonel  Armstrong,  who  borrowed  money  to  build  his  first 
derrick  and  buy  his  first  boiler,  was  pegging  away  at  his  second  well.  The 
sand  was  bored  through  into  the  slate  beneath  and  the  contractor  pronounced 
the  well  a  failure.  The  scouts  agreed  with  him  unanimously  and  declared  the 
contractor  a  level-headed  gentleman.  The  owner,  who  looked  for  something 
nicer  than  salt-water  and  forty-five  feet  of  ungreased  sand,  did  not  lose  every 
vestige  of  hope.  He  decided  to  try  the  persuasive  powers  of  a  torpedo.  At 
noon  on  October  twenty-seventh  sixty  quarts  of  nitro-glycerine  were  lowered 
into  the  hole.  The  usual  low  rumbling  responded,  but  the  expected  flow  did 
not  follow  immediately.  One  of  the  scouts  laughingly  offered  Armstrong  a 
cigar  for  the  well,  which  the  whole  party  declared  "no  good."  They  broke 
for  the  telegraph-office  in  the  buggy  to  wire  that  the  well  was  a  duster.  Prices 
stiffened  and  the  bulls  breathed  more  freely. 

The  scouts  changed  their  minds  and  their  messages  very  speedily.  The 
rumbling  increased  until  its  roar  resembled  a  small  Niagara.  A  sheet  of  salt- 
water shot  out  of  the  hole  over  the  derrick,  followed  by  a  shower  of  slate, 
stones  and  dirt.  A  moment  later,  with  a  preliminary  cough  to  clear  its  pas- 
sage, the  oil  came  with  a  mighty  rush.  A  giant  stream  spurted  sixty  feet  above 
the  tall  derrick,  dug  drains  in  the  ground  and  saturated  everything  within  a 
radius  of  five-hundred  feet !  The  Jumbo  of  oil-wells  had  been  struck.  Thou- 
sands of  barrels  of  oil  were  wasted  before  the  cap  could  be  adjusted  on  the 
casing.  Tanks  had  been  provided  and  a  half-dozen  pipes  were  needed  to  carry 
the  enormous  mass  of  fluid.  It  was  an  inspiring  sight  to  stand  on  top  of  the 
tank  and  watch  the  tossing,  heaving,  foaming  deluge.  The  first  twenty-four 
hours  Armstrong  No.  2  flowed  eight- thousand- eight- hundred  barrels!  It 
dropped  to  six-thousand  by  November  first,  to  six-hundred  by  December  first 
and  next  morning  stopped  alrogether,  having  produced  eighty-nine-thousand 
barrels  in  thirty-seven  days !  Armstrong  then  divided  his  lease  into  five-acre 
patches,  sold  them  at  fifteen-hundred  dollars  bonus  and  half  the  oil  and  quit 
Thorn  Creek  in  the  spring  a  half-million  ahead. 

Fisher  Brothers  were  the  largest  operators  in  the  field.  From  the  Marshall 
farm  of  three-hundred  acres — worth  ten  dollars  an  acre  for  farming — they  took 
four-hundred-thousand  dollars'  worth  of  oil.  Their  biggest  well  flowed  forty- 
two-hundred  barrels  on  November  fifteenth,  when  the  total  output  of  the  field 
was  sixteen-thousand,  its  highest  notch.  Miller  &  Yeagle's  spouter  put  forty- 


ON   THE  SOUTHERN   TRAIL.  245 

five-hundred  into  the  tank,  sending  out  a  stream  that  filled  a  five-inch  pipe. 
Thomas  B.  Simpson,  of  Oil  City,  joined  with  Thomas  \V.  Phillips  in  leasing  the 
Kennedy  farm  and  drilling  a  three-thousand-barrel  well.  They  sold  to  the 
Associated  Producers  in  December  for  eighty-thousand  dollars  and  Simpson,  a 
sensible  man  every  day  in  the  year,  presented  his  wife  with  a  Christmas  check 
for  his  half  of  the  money.  McBride  and  Campbell,  two  young  drillers  who  had 
gone  to  Thorn  Creek  in  search  of  work,  went  a  mile  in  advance  of  develop- 
ments and  bored  a  well  that  did  five-thousand  barrels  a  day.  They  sold  out  to 


the  Associated  Producers  for  ninety-thousand  and  six  months  later  their  big 
well  was  classed  among  the  small  pumpers.  Campbell  saved  what  he  had 
made,  but  success  did  not  sit  well  on  McBride's  shoulders.  After  lighting  his 
cigars  awhile  with  five-dollar  bills  he  touched  bottom  and  went  back  to  the 
drill.  Hell's  Half  Acre,  a  crumb  of  land  owned  by  the  Bredin  heirs,  emptied 
sixty-thousand  barrels  into  the  tanks  of  the  Associated  Producers.  The  little 
truck-farm  of  John  Mangel  put  ninety-thousand  into  its  owner's  pocket,  although 
a  losing  venture  to  the  operators,  producing  barely  a  hundred-thousand  bar- 
rels. For  the  half-acre  on  which  the  red  school-house  was  built,  ten  rods  from 


246  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

the  first  Phillips  well,  the  directors  were  offered  fifty-thousand  dollars.  This 
would  have  endowed  every  school  in  the  township,  but  legal  obstacles  pre- 
vented the  sale  and  the  district  was  the  loser.  By  May  the  production  declined 
to  seven-thousand  barrels  and  to  one-thousand  by  the  end  of  1885.  The  sud- 
den rise  of  the  field  made  a  score  of  fortunes  and  its  sudden  collapse  ruined  as 
many  more.  Thorn  Creek,  like  reform  measures  in  the  Legislature,  had  a  bril- 
liant opening  and  an  inglorious  close. 

The  Thorn-Creek  white  sanders  encouraged  wildcatting  to  an  extraordi- 
nary degree.  In  hope  of  extending  the  pool  or  disclosing  a  fresh  one,  "men 
drilled  who  never  drilled  before,  and  those  who  always  drilled  but  drilled  the 
more."  Johnson  &  Co. .Campbell  &  McBride,  Fisher  Brothers  and  Shide- 
mantle's  dusters  on  the  southern  end  of  the  gusher-farms  condemned  the  terri- 
tory in  that  direction.  Painter  Brothers  developed  a  small  pool  at  Riebold  Sta- 
tion. Craig  &  Cappeau,  who  struck  the  initial  spouter  at  Kane,  and  the  Fisher 
Oil-Company  failed  to  open  up  a  field  in  Middlesex  township.  Some  oil  was 
found  at  Zelienople  and  gas  at  numerous  points  in  raking  over  Butler  county. 
The  country  south-west  of  Butler,  into  West  Virginia  and  Ohio,  was  overrun 
by  oil-prospectors,  intent  upon  tying  up  lands  and  seeing  that  no  lurking  pud- 
dle of  petroleum  should  escape.  Test  wells  crossed  the  lines  into  Allegheny 
and  Beaver  counties  and  Shoustown,  Shannopin,  Mt.  Nebo,  Coraopolis,  Under- 
cliff  and  Economy  figured  in  the  newspapers  as  oil-centers  of  more  or  less  con- 
sequence. Members  of  the  old  guard,  fortified  with  a  stack  of  blues  at  their 
elbow  to  meet  any  contingency,  shared  in  these  proceedings.  Brundred  & 
Marston  drilled  on  Pine  Creek,  at  the  lower  end  of  Armstrong  county,  in  the 
seventies,  a  Pittsburg  company  repeating  the  dose  in  1886.  At  New  Bethlehem 
they  bored  two-thousand  feet,  finding  seven-hundred  feet  of  red-rock.  This 
rock  varies  from  one  to  three-hundred  feet  on  Oil  Creek  and  geologists  assert 
is  six-thousand  feet  thick  at  Harrisburg,  diminishing  as  it  approaches  the  Alle- 
ghenies.  The  late  W.  J.  Brundred,  agent  at  Oil  City  of  the  Empire  Line  until 
its  absorption  by  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad,  was  a  skilled  oil-operator,  practi- 
cal in  his  ideas  and  prompt  in  his  methods.  His  son,  B.  F.  Brundred,  is  presi- 
dent of  the  Imperial  Refining  Company  and  a  prosperous  resident  of  Oil  City. 
Joseph  H.  Marston  died  in  California,  whither  he  had  gone  hoping  to  improve 
his  health,  in  1880.  He  was  an  artist  at  Franklin  in  the  opening  years  of  devel- 
opments and  removed  to  Oil  City.  He  owned  the  Petroleum  House  and  was 
exceptionally  genial,  enterprising  and  popular. 
"  Through  many  a  year 
We  shall  remember,  with  a  sad  delight, 
The  friends  forever  gone  from  mortal  sight." 

Pittsburg  assumed  the  airs  of  a  petroleum-metropolis.  Natural-gas  in  the 
suburbs  and  east  of  the  city  changed  its  sooty  blackness  to  a  delicate  clearness 
that  enabled  people  to  see  the  sky.  Oilmen  made  it  their  headquarters  and 
built  houses  at  East  Liberty  and  Allegheny.  To-day  more  representative  pro- 
ducers can  be  seen  in  Pittsburg  than  in  Oil  City,  Titusville  or  Bradford.  Within 
a  hundred  yards  of  the  National-Transit  offices  one  can  find  Captain  Vander- 
grift,  T.  J.  Vandergrift,  J.  M.  Guffey,  John  Galey,  Frank  Queen,  W.  J.  Young, 
P.  M.  Shannon,  Frederick  Hayes,  Dr.  M.  C.  Egbert,  A.  J.  Gartland,  Edward 
Jennings,  Captain  Grace,  S.  D.  Karns,  William  Fleming,  C.  D.  Greenlee,  James 
M.  Lambing,  John  Galloway,  John  J.  Fisher,  Henry  Fisher,  Frederick  Fisher, 
J.  A.  Buchanan,  J.  N.  Pew,  Michael  Murphy,  James  Patterson  and  other  vet- 
erans in  the  business.  These  are  some  of  the  men  who  had  the  grit  to  open 


ON  THE  SOUTHERN  TRAIL.  247 

new  fields,  to  risk  their  cash  in  pioneer-experiments,  to  cheapen  transportation 
and  to  make  kerosene  "the  poor  man's  light."  They  are  not  youngsters  any 
more,  but  their  hearts  have  not  grown  old,  their  heads  have  not.  swelled  and 
the  microbe  of  selfishness  has  not  soured  their  kindly  impulses.  They  are  of 
the  royal  stamp  that  would  rather  tramp  the  cross-ties  with  honor  than  ride  in 
a  sixteen-wheeled  Pullman  dishonestly. 

Gas  east  and  oil  west  was  the  rule  at  Pittsburg.  Wildwood  was  the  chief 
sensation  in  1889-90.  This  was  the  pet  of  T.  J.  Vandergrift,  head  and  front  of 
the  Woodland  Oil-Company,  which  has  harvested  bushels  of  money  from  the 
field.  "  Op  "  Vandergrift  is  not  an  apprentice  in  petroleum.  He  added  to  his 
reputation  in  the  middle-field  leading  the  opposition  to  the  mystery-dodge. 
Napoleon  or  Grant  was  not  a  finer  tactician. 
His  clever  plans  were  executed  without  a  hitch 
or  a  Waterloo.  He  neither  lost  his  temper  nor 
wasted  his  powder.  The  man  who  ' '  fights  the 
devil  with  fire  "  is  apt  to  run  short  of  ammuni- 
tion, but  Vandergrift  knew  the  ropes,  kept  his 
own  counsel,  was  "cool  as  a  cucumber"  and 
won  in  an  easy  canter.  He  is  obliging,  social, 
manfully  independent  and  a  zealous  worker  in 
the  Producers'  Association.  It  is  narrated  that 
he  went  to  New  York  three  years  ago  to  close 
a  big  deal  for  Ohio  territory  he  had  been  asked 
to  sell.  He  named  the  price  and  was  told  a 
sub-boss  at  Oil  City  must  pass  upon  the  matter. 
"  Gentlemen,"  he  said,  "  I  am  not  going  to  Oil 
City  on  any  such  errand.  I  came  prepared  to 
transfer  the  property  and,  if  you  want  it,  I  shall 

be  in  the  city  until  noon  to-morrow  to  receive  the  money  !"  The  cash — three- 
hundred-thousand  dollars — was  paid  at  eleven  o'clock.  Mr.  Vandergrift  has 
interests  in  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  West-Virginia  and  Kentucky.  He  knows  a 
good  horse,  a  good  story,  a  good  lease  or  a  good  fellow  at  sight  and  a  wildcat- 
well  does  not  frighten  him  off  the  track.  His  home  is  at  Jamestown  and  his 
office  at  Pittsburg. 

Thirty-three  wells  at  Wildwood  realized  Greenlee  &  Forst  not  far  from  a 
quarter-million  dollars.  Five  in  "the  hundred-foot "  field  west  of  Butler  repaid 
their  cost  and  brought  them  fifty-thousand  dollars  from  the  South-Penn  Oil- 
Company.  The  two  lucky  operators  next  leased  and  purchased  eight-hundred 
acres  at  Oakdale,  Noblestown  and  McDonald,  in  Allegheny  and  Washington 
counties,  fifteen  to  twenty  miles  west  of  Pittsburg.  The  Crofton  third-sand 
pool  was  opened  in  February  of  1888,  the  Groveton  &  Young  hundred-foot  in 
the  winter  of  1889-90  and  the  Chartiers  third-sand  field  in  the  spring  of  1890. 
South-west  of  these,  on  the  J.  J.  McCurdy  farm,  five  miles  north-east  of  Oak- 
dale,  Patterson  &  Jones  drilled  into  the  fifth  sand  on  October  seventeenth,  1890. 
The  well  flowed  nine-hundred  barrels  a  day  for  four  months,  six  months  later 
averaged  two-hundred  and  by  the  end  of  1891  had  yielded  a  hundred-and-fifty 
thousand.  Others  on  the  same  and  adjacent  tracts  started  at  fifty  to  twenty-five- 
hundred  barrels,  Patterson  &  Jones  alone  deriving  four-thousand  barrels  a  day 
from  thirteen  wells.  In  the  summer  of  1890  the  Royal  Gas-Company  drilled 
two  wells  on  the  McDonald  estate,  two  miles  west  of  McDonald  Station  and 
ten  south-west  of  McCurdy,  finding  a  show  of  oil  in  the  so-called  "Gordon 
17 


248  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

sand."  On  the  farm  of  Edward  McDonald,  west  side  of  the  borough,  the  com- 
pany struck  oil  and  gas  in  the  same  rock  the  latter  part  of  September.  The 
well  stood  idle  two  months,  was  bored  through  the  fifth  sand  in  November, 
torpedoed  on  December  twentieth  and  filled  three  tanks  of  oil  in  ten  days. 
The  tools  were  run  down  to  clean  it  out,  stuck  fast  and  the  pioneer  venture 
of  the  McDonald  region  ended  its  career  simultaneously  with  the  ending  of 
1890.  Thorn  Creek  had  been  a  wonder  and  Wildwood  a  dandy,  yet  both 
combined  were  to  be  dwarfed  and  all  records  smashed  by  the  greatest  white- 
sand  pool  and  the  biggest  gushers  in  America. 

Geologists  solemnly  averred  in  1883  that  "the  general  boundaries  of  the 
oil-region  of  Pennsylvania  are  now  well  established,"  "we  can  have  no  rea- 
sonable expectation  that  any  new  and  extensive  field  will  be  found  "  and  "there 
are  not  any  grounds  for  anticipating  the  discovery  of  new  fields  which  will  add 
enough  to  the  declining  products  of  the  old  to  enable  the  output  to  keep  pace 
with  the  consumption."  Notwithstanding  these  learned  opinions,  Thorn  Creek 
had  the  effrontery  to  "be  found"  in  1884,  Wildwood  in  1889  and  the  monarch 
of  the  tribe  in  1891.  The  men  who  want  people  to  discard  Genesis  for  their 
interpretation  of  the  rocks  were  as  wide  of  the  mark  as  the  dudish  Nimrod  who 
couldn't  hit  a  barn-door  at  thirty  yards.  He  paralyzed  his  friends  by  announc- 
ing :  "Wai,  I  hit  the  bullseye  to-day  the  vehwy  fiwst  shot!"  Congratulations 
were  pouring  in  when  he  added  :  "  Yaas,  and  the  bweastly  fawmeh  made  me 
pay  twenty-five  dollahs  fawh  the  bull  I  didn't  see  when  I  fiwed,  doncherknow  !" 
A  raw  recruit  instructed  the  architect  of  his  uniform  to  sew  in  an  iron-plate  "to 
protect  the  most  vital  part."-  The  facetious  tailor,  instead  of  fixing  the  plate  in 
the  breast  of  the  coat,  planted  it  in  the  seat  of  the  young  fellow's  breeches. 
The  enemy  worsting  his  side  in  a  skirmish,  the  retreating  youth  tried  to  climb 
over  a  stone-wall.  A  soldier  rushed  to  transfix  him  with  his  bayonet,  which 
landed  on  the  iron-plate  with  the  force  of  a  battering-ram.  The  shock  hurled 
the  climber  safely  into  the  field,  tilted  his  assailant  backward  and  broke  off 
the  point  of  the  cold  steel !  The  happy  hero  picked  himself  up  and  exclaimed 
fervently  :  "That  tailor  knew  a  devilish  sight  better' n  me  what's  my  most  vital 
part!"  Operators  who  paid  no  heed  to  scientific  disquisitions,  but  went  on 
opening  new  fields  each  season,  believed  the  drill  was  the  one  infallible  test  of 
petroleum's  most  vital  part. 

In  May  of  1891  the  Royal  Gas-Company  finished  two  wells  on  the  Robb  and 
Sauters  tracts,  south  of  town,  across  the  railroad-track.  The  Robb  proved  a 
twenty-barreler  and  the  Sauters  flowed  one-hundred-and-sixty  barrels  a  day 
from  the  fifth  sand.  They  attracted  the  notice  of  the  oilmen,  who  had  not  taken 
much  stock  in  the  existence  of  paying  territory  at  McDonald.  Three  miles 
north-east  the  Matthews  well,  also  a  May-flower,  produced  thirty  barrels  a  day 
from  the  Gordon  rock.  On  July  first  it  was  drilled  into  the  fifth  sand,  increas- 
ing the  output  to  eight-hundred  barrels  a  day  for  two  months.  Further  probing 
the  first  week  in  September  increased  it  to  eleven-thousand  barrels!  Scouts 
gauged  it  at  seven-hundred  barrels  an  hour  for  three  hours  after  the  agitation 
ceased !  It  yielded  four-hundred-thousand  barrels  of  oil  in  four  months  and 
was  properly  styled  Matthews  the  Great.  The  owners  were  James  M.  Guffey, 
John  Galey,  Edward  Jennings  and  Michael  Murphy.  They  built  acres  of  tanks 
and  kept  ten  or  a  dozen  sets  of  tools  constantly  at  work.  Mr.  Guffey,  a  prime 
mover  in  every  field  from  Richburg  to  West  Virginia,  was  largely  interested  in 
the  Oakdale  Oil-Company's  eighteen-hundred  acres.  With  Galey,  Jennings 
and  Murphy  he  owned  the  Sturgeon,  Bell  and  Herron  farms,  the  first  six  wells 


ON   THE  SOUTHERN   TRAIL. 


249 


on  which  yielded  twenty-eight-thousand  barrels  a  day  !  The  mastodon  oil-field 
of  the  world  had  been  ushered  in  by  men  whose  sagacious  boldness  and  good 
judgment  Bradford,  Warren,  Venango,  Clarion  and  Butler  had  witnessed  re- 
peatedly. 

C.  D.  Greenlee  and  Barney  Forst,  who  joined  forces  west  of  Butler  and  at 
Wildwood,  in  August  of  1891  leased  James  Mevey's  two-hundred-and-fifty  acres, 
a  short  distance  north-east  of  McDonald.  Greenlee  and  John  W.  Weeks,  a 
surveyor  who  had  mapped  out  the  district  and  predicted  it  would  be  the  "richest 
field  in  Pennsylvania,"  selected  a  gentle  slope  beside  a  light  growth  of  timber 
for  the  first  well  on  the  Mevey  farm.  The  rig  was  hurried  up  and  the  tools 
were  hurried  down.  On  Saturday,  September  twenty-sixth,  the  fifth  sand  was 
cracked  and  oil  gushed  at  the  rate  of  one-hundred-and-forty  barrels  an  hour. 


The  well  was  stirred  a  trifle  on  Monday,  September  twenty-eighth,  with  start- 
ling effect.  It  put  fifteen-thousand-six-hundred  barrels  of  oil  into  the  tanks  in 
twenty-four  hours  !  The  Armstrong  and  the  Matthews  had  to  surrender  their 
laurels,  for  Greenlee  &  Forst  owned  the  largest  oil-well  ever  struck  on  this 
continent.  On  Sunday,  October  fourth,  after  slight  agitation  by  the  tools,  the 
mammoth  poured  out  seven-hundred-and-fifty-barrels  an  hour  for  four  hours, 
a  record  that  may,  perhaps,  stand  until  Gabriel's  horn  proclaims  the  wind-up 
of  oil-geysers  and  all  terrestrial  things.  The  well  has  yielded  several-hundred- 
thousand  barrels  and  is  still  pumping  fifty.  Greenlee  &  Forst's  production  for 
a  time  exceeded  twenty-thousand  barrels  a  day  and  they  could  have  taken  two 
or  three-million  dollars  for  their  properties.  The  partners  did  not  pile  on  the 
agony  because  of  their  good-luck.  They  kept  their  office  at  Pittsburg  and 


250  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

Greenlee  continued  to  live  at  Butler.  He  is  a  typical  manager  in  the  field,  bub- 
bling over  with  push  and  vim.  Forst  had  a  clothing-store  at  Millerstown  in  its 
busy  days,  waltzed  around  the  bull-ring  in  the  Bradford  oil-exchange  and 
returned  southward  to  scoop  the  capital  prize  in  the  petroleum-lottery. 

Scurrying  for  territory  in  the  Jumbo-field  set  in  with  the  vigor  of  a  thou- 
sand football-rushes.  McDonald  tourists,  eager  to  view  the  wondrous  spouters 
and  hungry  for  any  morsel  of  land  that  could  be  picked  up,  packed  the  Pan- 
handle trains.  Rigs  were  reared  on  town-lots,  in  gardens  and  yards.  Gas- 
lights glared,  streams  of  oil  flowed  and  the  liveliest  scenes  of  Oil  Creek  were 
revived  and  emphasized.  By  November  first  two-hundred  wells  were  drilling 
and  sixty  rigs  building.  Fifty-four  October  strikes  swelled  the  daily  production 
at  the  close  of  the  month  to  eighty-thousand  barrels !  What  Bradford  had 
taken  years  to  accomplish  McDonald  achieved  in  ninety  days  !  Greenlee  & 
Forst  had  thirty  wells  drilling  and  three-hundred-thousand  barrels  of  iron-tank- 
age. Guffey,  Galey  &  Jennings  were  on  deck  with  fifteen  or  twenty.  The 
Fisher  Oil-Company,  owning  one-fourth  the  Oakdale's  big  tract  and  the  Mc- 
Michael  farm,  had  sixteen  wells  reaching  for  the  jugular,  from  which  the  Stur- 
geon and  Baldwin  spouters  were  drawing  ten-thousand  barrels  a  day.  William 
Guckert — he  started  at  Foster  and  was  active  at  Edenburg,  Parker,  Millers- 
town,  Bradford  and  Thorn  Creek — and  John  A.  Steele  had  two  producing 
largely  and  eight  going  down  on  the  Mevey  farm.  J.  G.  Haymaker,  a  pioneer 
from  Allegany  county,  N.  Y.,  to  Allegheny  county,  Pa.,  and  Thomas  Leggett 
owned  one  gusher,  nine  drilling  wells  and  five-hundred  acres  of  leases.  Hay- 
maker began  at  Pithole,  drilled  in  Venango  and  Clarion,  was  prominent  in  But- 
ler and  in  1878  optioned  blocks  of  land  on  Meek's  Creek  that  developed  good 
territory  and  the  thriving  town  of  Haymaker,  the  forerunner  of  the  Allegheny 
field.  He  boosted  Saxonburg  and  Legionville  and  his  brother,  Obadiah  Hay- 
maker, opened  the  Murraysville  gas-field  and  was  shot  dead  defending  his 
property  against  an  attack  by  Weston's  minions.  Veterans  from  every  quarter 
flocked  in  and  new  faces  were  to  be  counted  by  hundreds  at  Oakdale,  Nobles- 
town  and  McDonald.  The  National-Transit  Company  laid  a  host  of  lines  to 
keep  the  tanks  from  overflowing  and  Mellon  Brothers  operated  an  independent 
pipe-line.  Handling  such  an  avalanche  of  oil  was  not  child's  play  and  it  would 
have  been  utterly  impossible  in  the  era  of  wagons  and  flat-boats  on  Oil  Creek. 

McDonald  territory,  if  unparalleled  in  richness,  in  some  respects  tallied 
with  portions  of  Oil  Creek  and  the  fourth-sand  division  of  Butler.  Occasion- 
ally a  dry-hole  varied  the  monotony  of  the  reports  and  ruffled  the  plumage  of 
disappointed  seekers  for  gushers.  Even  the  Mevey  farm  trotted  out  dusters 
forty  rods  from  Greenlee  &  Forst's  record-breaker.  The  "belt"  was  not  con- 
tinuous from  McCurdy  and  dry-holes  shortened  it  southward  and  narrowed  it 
westward,  but  a  field  so  prolific  required  little  room  to  build  up  an  overwhelm- 
ing production.  An  engine  may  exert  the  force  of  a  thousand  horses  and  the 
yield  of  the  Greenlee  &  Forst  or  the  Matthews  in  sixty  days  exceeded  that  of  a 
hundred  average  wells  in  a  twelvemonth.  The  remotest  likelihood  of  running 
against  such  a  snap  was  terribly  fascinating  to  operators  who  had  battled  in  the 
older  sections.  They  were  not  the  men  to  let  the  chance  slip  and  stay  away 
from  McDonald.  Hence  the  field  was  defined  quickly  and  the  line  of  march 
resumed  towards  the  southward,  into  Washington  county  and  West- Virginia. 

Wrinkles,  gray-hairs  and  sometimes  oil-wells  come  to  him  who  has  patience 
to  wait.  Just  as  1884  was  expiring,  the  discovery  of  oil  in  a  well  on  the  Gantz 
lot,  a  few  rods  from  the  Chartiers-Railroad  depot,  electrified  the  ancient  bor- 


ON  THE  SOUTHERN  TRAIL.  251 

ough  of  Washington,  midway  between  Pittsburg  and  Wheeling.  The  whole 
town  gathered  to  see  the  grease  spout  above  the  derrick.  Hundreds  of  oilmen 
hurried  to  pick  up  leases  and  jerk  the  tools.  For  six  weeks  a  veil  of  mystery 
shrouded  the  well,  which  was  then  announced  to  be  of  small  account.  Eight 
others  had  been  started,  but  the  territory  was  deep,  the  rock  was  often  hard 
and  the  excited  populace  had  to  wait  six  months  for  the  answer  to  the  drill. 

Traveling  over  Washington  county  in  1880,  Frederick  Crocker  noticed  its 
strong  geological  resemblance  to  the  upper  oil-fields,  which  he  knew  intimately. 
The  locality  was  directly  on  a  line  from  the  northern  districts  to  points  south 
that  had  produced  oil.  He  organized  the  Niagara  Oil-Company  and  sent 
agents  to  secure  leases.  Remembering  the  collapse  of  Washington  companies 
in  1860-1,  when  wells  on  Dunkard  Creek  attracted  folks  to  Greene  county, 
farmers  held  back  their  lands  until  public-meetings  and  a  house-to-house  can- 
vass satisfied  them  the  Niagara  meant  business.  Blocks  were  leased  in  the 
northern  tier  of  townships  and  in  1882  a  test  well  was  drilled  on  the  McGuigan 
farm.  An  immense  flow  of  gas  was  encountered  at  twenty-two-hundred  feet 
and  not  a  drop  of  oil.  Not  disheartened,  the  company  went  west  three  miles 
and  sank  a  well  on  the  Buchanan  farm,  forty-two-hundred  feet.  Possibly  the 
hole  contained  oil,  but  it  was  plugged  and  the  drillers  proceeded  to  bore  thirty- 
six-hundred  feet  on  the  Rush  farm,  four  miles  south.  Jumping  eleven  miles 
north-east,  they  obtained  gas,  salt-water  and  feeble  spurts  of  oil  from  a  well  on 
the  Scott  farm.  About  this  stage  of  the  proceedings  the  People's  Light  and 
Heat  Company  was  organized  to  supply  Washington  with  natural-gas.  From 
three  wells  plenty  of  gas  for  the  purpose  was  derived.  A  rival  company  drilled 
a  well  on  the  Gantz  lot,  adjacent  to  the  town,  which  at  twenty-one-hundred 
feet  struck  the  vein  of  oil  that  threw  the  county-seat  into  spasms  on  the  last 
day  of  1884. 

The  fever  broke  out  afresh  in  July  of  1885,  by  a  report  that  the  Thayer 
well,  on  the  Farley  farm,  a  mile  south-west  in  advance  of  developments,  had 
"come  in."  This  well,  located  in  an  oatfield  in  a  deep  ravine,  was  worked  as 
a  mystery.  Armed  guards  constantly  kept  watch  and  scouts  reclining  on  the 
hill-top  contented  themselves  with  an  unsatisfactory  peep  through  a  field-glass. 
One  night  a  shock  of  oats  approached  within  sixty  feet  of  the  derrick.  The 
guard  fired  and  the  propelling  power  immediately  took  to  its  heels  and  ran. 
Another  night,  while  a  crowd  of  disinterested  parties  jangled  with  the  guards, 
scouts  gained  entrance  to  the  derrick  from  the  rear,  but  discovered  no  oil. 
Previous  to  this  a  scout  had  paid  a  midnight  visit  to  the  well,  eluded  the  guards, 
boldly  climbed  to  the  top  of  the  derrick  and  with  chalk  marked  the  crown- 
pulley.  With  the  aid  of  their  glasses  the  vigilant  watchers  on  the  hill-top 
counted  the  revolutions  and  calculated  the  length  of  cable  needed  to  reach  the 
bottom  of  the  well.  A  bolder  move  was  to  crawl  under  the  floor  of  the  der- 
rick. This  was  successfully  accomplished  by  several  daring  fellows,  one  of 
whom  was  caught  in  the  act.  He  weighed  two-hundred-and-forty  pounds  and 
his  frantic  struggles  for  a  comfortable  resting-place  led  to  his  discovery.  A 
handful  of  cigars  and  a  long  pull  at  his  pocket  flask  purchased  his  freedom. 
The  well  was  a  failure.  R.  H.  Thayer  drilled  four  more  good  ones,  one  a 
gusher  that  netted  him  three-thousand  dollars  a  day  for  months.  Other  opera- 
tors crowded  in  and  were  rewarded  with  dusters  of  the  most  approved  type. 

The  despondency  following  the  failure  of  Thayer's  No.  i  was  dispelled  on 
August  twenty-second.  The  People's  Light  and  Heat  Company's  well,  on  the 
Gordon  farm,  pierced  a  new  sand  two-hundred-and-sixty  feet  below  the  Gantz 


252  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

formation,  and  oil  commenced  to  scale  the  derrick.  Again  the  petroleum- 
fever  raged.  An  owner  of  the  well,  at  church  on  Sunday  morning,  suddenly 
awakened  from  his  slumbers  and  horrified  pastor  and  congregation  by  yelling  : 
"  By  George  !  There  she  spouts  !"  The  day  previous  he  had  seen  the  well  flow 
and  religious  thoughts  had  been  temporarily  replaced  by  dreams  of  a  fortune. 
This  well's  best  day's  record  was  one-hundred-and-sixty  barrels.  Test  wells 
for  the  new  Gordon  sand  were  sunk  in  all  directions  and  the  Washington  field 
had  made  a  substantial  beginning.  The  effect  on  the  inhabitants  was  marked. 
The  price  of  wool  no  longer  formed  the  staple  of  conversation,  the  new  indus- 
try entirely  superseding  it.  Real-estate  values  shot  skyward  and  the  borough 
population  strode  from  five-thousand  to  seventy-five-hundred.  The  sturdy 
Scotch- Presbyterians  would  not  tolerate  dance-houses,  gambling-hells  and  dens 
of  vice  in  a  town  that  for  twenty  years  had  not  permitted  the  sale  of  liquor. 
Time  works  wonders.  Washington  county,  which  fomented  the  Whisky  In- 
surrection, was  transformed  into  a  prohibition  stronghold.  The  festive  citizen 
intent  upon  a  lark  had  to  journey  to  Pittsburg  or  Wheeling  for  his  jag. 

Col.  E.  H.  Dyer,  whom  the  Gantz  well  allured  to  the  new  district,  leased 
the  Calvin  Smith  farm,  three  miles  north-east,  and  started  the  drill.  He  had 
twenty  years'  experience  and  very  little  cash.  His  funds  giving  out,  he  offered 
the  well  and  lease  for  five-hundred  dollars.  Willets  &  Young  agreed  to  finish 
the  well  for  two-thirds  interest.  They  pounded  the  rock,  drilled  through  the 
fifth  sand  and  hit  "the  fifty-foot "  nearer  China.  In  January  of  1886  the  well — 
Dyer  No.  i — flowed  four-hundred  barrels  a  day.  Expecting  gas  or  a  dry-hole, 
from  the  absence  of  oil  in  the  customary  sand,  the  owners  had  not  erected 
tanks  and  the  stream  wasted  for  several  days.  Dyer  sold  his  remaining  one- 
third  to  Joseph  W.  Craig,  a  well-known  operator  in  the  Oil-City  and  Pittsburg 
oil-exchanges,  for  seventy-five-thousand  dollars.  He  organized  the  Mascot  Oil- 
Company,  located  the  McGahey  in  another  section  of  the  field  and  pocketed 
two-hundred-thousand  dollars  for  his  year's  work  in  Washington  county.  The 
Smith  proved  to  be  the  creamiest  farm  in  the  field,  returning  Willets,  Young 
and  Craig  six-hundred-thousand  dollars.  Calvin  Smith  was  a  hired  man  in 
1876,  working  by  the  month  on  the  farm  he  bought  in  1883,  paying  a  small 
amount  and  arranging  to  string  out  the  balance  in  fifteen  annual  instalments. 
His  one-eighth  royalty  fattened  his  bank-account  in  eighteen  months  to  six 
figures,  an  achievement  creditable  to  the  scion  of  the  multudinous  Smith-family. 

From  the  sinking  of  the  Dyer  well  drilling  went  on  recklessly.  Everybody 
felt  confident  of  a  great  future  for  Washington  territory.  Isaac  Willets,  brother 
of  an  owner  of  the  Smith  tract,  paid  sixty-thousand  dollars  for  the  adjoining 
farm — the  Munce— and  spent  two-hundred-thousand  in  wells  that  cleared  him  a 
plump  half-million.  John  McKeown  the  same  day  bought  the  farm  of  the 
Munce  heirs,  directly  north  of  their  uncle's,  and  drilled  wells  that  yielded  him 
five-thousand  dollars  a  day.  He  removed  to  Washington  and  died  there.  His 
widow  erected  a  sixty-thousand-dollar  monument  over  his  grave,  something 
that  would  never  have  happened  if  John,  plain,  hard-headed  and  unpretentious, 
could  have  expressed  his  sentiments.  Thayer  No.  2,  on  the  Clark  farm,  adjoin- 
ing the  Gordon,  startled  the  fraternity  in  May  of  1886  by  flowing  two-thousand 
barrels  a  day  from  the  Gordon  sand.  It  was  the  biggest  spouter  in  the  heap. 
Lightning  struck  the  tank  and  burned  the  gusher,  the  blazing  oil  shooting 
flames  a  hundred  feet  towards  the  blue  canopy.  At  night  the  brilliant  light 
illumined  the  country  for  miles,  travelers  pronouncing  it  equal  to  Mt.  Vesuvius 
in  active  eruption.  The  burning  oil  ran  to  Gordon  No.  i,  on  lower  ground, 


ON  THE  SOUTHERN  TRAIL.  253 

setting  it  off  also.  In  a  week  the  Thayer  blaze  was  doused  and  the  stream  of 
crude  turned  into  the  tanks  of  No.  i.  Next  night  a  tool-dresser,  carrying  a 
lantern  on  his  way  to  "midnight  tower,"  set  fire  to  the  gas  which  hung  around 
the  tanks.  The  flames  once  more  shot  above  the  tree-tops,  the  tool-dresser 
saved  his  life  only  by  rolling  into  the  creek,  but  the  derrick  was  saved  and  no 
damage  resulted  to  the  well. 

Captain  J.  J.  Vandergrift  leased  the  Barre  farm,  south  of  the  Smith,  and 
drilled  a  series  of  gushers  that  added  materially  to  his  great  wealth.  Dispos- 
ing of  the  Barre,  he  developed  the  Taylorstown  pool  and  reaped  a  fortune. 
T.  J.  Vandergrift  leased  the  McManis  farm,  six  miles  south  of  Washington,  and 
located  the  first  Taylorstown  well.  Taylorstown  is  still  on  duty  and  W.  J. 
Young  manages  the  company  that  acquired  the  Vandergrift  interests.  South 
of  the  Barre  farm  James  Stewart,  vendor  of  a  cure-all  salve,  owned  a  shanty 
and  three  acres  of  land  worth  four-hundred  dollars.  He  leased  to  Joseph  M. 
Craig  for  one-fourth  royalty.  The  one  well  drilled  on  the  lot  spouted  two- 
thousand  barrels  a  day  for  weeks.  It  is  now  pumping  fairly.  This  was  salve 
for  Stewart  and  liniment  for  Craig,  whose  Washington  winnings  exceed  a  half- 
million.  "Mammy  "  Miller,  an  aged  colored  woman,  lived  on  a  small  lot  next 
to  Stewart  and  leased  it  at  one-fourth  royalty  to  a  couple  of  local  merchants. 
They  drilled  a  thousand-barrel  well  and  "Mammy"  became  the  most  courted 
negress  in  Pennsylvania.  The  Union  Oil-Company  took  four-hundred-thousand 
dollars  from  the  Davis  farm.  Patrick  Galligan,  the  contractor  of  the  Smith 
well,  leased  the  Taylor  farm  and  grew  rich.  Pew  &  Emerson,  who  have  made 
millions  by  natural-gas  operations,  leased  the  Manifold  farm,  west  of  the  Smith. 
The  first  well  paid  them  twenty-thousand  dollars  a  month  and  subsequent 
strikes  manifolded  this  a  number  of  times.  Pew  &  Emerson  have  risen  by  their 
energy  and  shrewdness  and  can  occupy  a  front  pew  in  the  congregation  of 
petroleumites. 

Samuel  Fergus,  once  county-treasurer  and  a  man  of  broad  mould,  struck 
a  geyser  in  the  Fergus  annex  to  the  main  pool.  He  drilled  on  his  twenty-four 
acres  solely  to  accommodate  Robert  Greene,  pumper  for  Davis  Brothers. 
Greene  had  much  faith  and  no  money,  but  he  advised  Fergus  to  exercise  the 
tools  at  a  particular  spot.  Fergus  might  have  kept  the  whole  hog  and  not  merely 
a  pork-chop.  He  sold  three-eighths  and  carried  one-eighth  for  Greene,  who 
refused  twenty-thousand  dollars  for  it  the  day  the  well  began  flowing  two-thou- 
sand barrels.  "Bob"  Greene,  like  Artemas  Ward's  kangaroo,  was  "a  amoo- 
sin'  cuss  !"  Called  to  Bradford  soon  after  the  gusher  was  struck,  he  met 
an  old  acquaintance  at  the  station.  His  friend  invited  Bob  into  the  smoker  to 
enjoy  a  good  cigar.  He  declined  and  in  language  more  expressive  than  ele- 
gant said  :  "I've  been  a  ridin'  in  smokers  all  my  life.  Now  I'm  goin'  to  turn 
a  new  leaf.  I'm  goin'  to  take  a  gentleman's  car  to  Pittsburg  and  from  there  to 
Bradford  I'm  goin'  to  have  a  Pullman,  if  it  takes  a  hull  day's  production."  Bob 
took  his  first  ride  in  a  Pullman  accordingly.  The  first  venture  induced  Fergus 
to  punch  his  patch  full  of  holes  and  do  a  turn  at  wildcatting.  His  stalwart  luck 
fired  the  hearts  of  many  young  farmers  to  imitate  him,  in  some  instances  suc- 
cessfully. Washington  has  not  yet  gone  out  of  the  oil-business.  The  Cecil 
pool  kept  the  trade  guessing  this  year,  but  its  gushers  lacked  endurance  and 
the  field  no  longer  terrorizes  the  weakest  lambkin  in  the  speculative  fold. 

Greene  county  experienced  its  first  baptism  of  petroleum  in  1861-2-3,  when 
many  wells  were  drilled  on  Dunkard  Creek.  The  general  result  was  unsatis- 
factory. The  idea  of  boring  two-thousand  feet  for  oil  had  not  been  conceived 


254  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

and  the  shallow  holes  did  not  reach  the  principal  strata.  Of  fourth  sand,  fifth 
sand,  Gordon  rock,  fifty-foot  rock,  Trenton  rock,  Berea  grit,  corn-meal  rock, 
Big-Injun  sand  and  others  of  the  deep-down  brand  operators  on  Dunkard 
Creek  never  dreamed.  Some  oil  was  detected  and  more  blocks  of  land  were 
tied  up  in  1864-5.  The  credulous  natives  actually  believed  their  county  would 
soon  be  shedding  oil  from  every  hill  and  hollow,  garden  and  pasture-field.  The 
holders  of  the  tracts — lessees  for  speculation  only — drilled  a  trifle,  sold  interests 
to  any  suckers  wanting  to  bite  and  the  promised  developments  fizzled.  E. 
M.  Hukill,  who  started  in  1868  at  Rouseville,  leased  twenty-thousand  acres  in 
1885  and  located  a  well  on  D.  L.  Donley's  farm,  one-third  mile  south-east  of 
the  modest  hamlet  of  Mt.  Morris.  Morris  Run  empties  into  Dunkard  Creek 
near  the  village.  The  tools  were  swung  on  March  second,  1886.  Fishing-jobs, 
hard  rock  and  varied  hindrances  impeded  the  work.  On  October  twenty-first 
oil  spouted,  two  flows  occurred  next  day  and  a  tank  was  constructed.  Salt- 
water bothered  it  and  the  well — twenty-two-hundred  feet — was  not  worth  the 
pains  taken  for  months  to  work  it  as  a  mystery.  Hukill  drilled  a  couple  of 
dusters  and  the  Gregg  well  at  Willowtree  was  also  a  dry-hole  at  twenty-three 
hundred  feet.  Craig  &  Cappeau  and  James  M.  Guffey  &  Co.  swept  over  the 
south-western  section  in  an  expensive  search  for  crude.  From  the  northern 
limit  of  McKean  to  the  southern  border  of  Greene  county  Pennsylvania  had 
been  ransacked.  The  Keystone  players — Venango,  Warren,  Forest,  Elk,  Mc- 
Kean, Clarion,  Armstrong,  Butler,  Allegheny,  Beaver  and  Washington — put  up 
a  stiff  game  and  the  region  across  the  Ohio  was  to  have  its  innings. 

C.  H.  Shattuck  had  the  first  well  in  West  Virginia  drilled  for  oil.  He  came 
from  Michigan  in  the  fall  of  1859,  secured  land  in  Wirt  county  and  bored  one- 
hundred  feet  by  the  tedious  spring-pole  process.  The  well  was  on  the  bank  of 
the  Hughes  river,  from  which  the  natives  skimmed  off  a  greasy  fluid  to  use  for 
rheumatism  and  bruises.  It  was  dry  and  Shattuck  settled  at  Parkersburg,  his 
present  abode.  At  Burning  Springs  a  "disagreeable  fluid  "  flooded  a  salt-well, 
which  the  owner  quit  in  disgust.  General  Samuel  Karns,  of  Pennsylvania,  and 
his  nephew,  S.  D.  Karns,  rigged  it  up  in  1860  and  pumped  considerable  oil. 
The  shallow  territory  was  operated  extensively.  Ford  &  Hanlon  bored  on  Oil- 
Spring  Run,  Ritchie  county,  in  1861-2,  finding  heavy  oil  in  paying  quantities. 
W.  H.  Moore  started  the  phenomenal  eruption  at  Volcano  in  1863,  by  drilling 
the  first  well,  which  produced  eight-thousand  barrels  of  lubricating  oil.  Sheafer 
&  Steen's,  the  second  well,  was  a  good  second  and  the  Cornfield  pumped 
seven-thousand  barrels  of  thirty-five-gravity  oil  in  six  months.  William  C. 
Stiles  and  the  Oil-Run  Petroleum  Company  punched  scores  of  wells.  Volcano 
perched  on  the  lubricating  pedestal  for  years,  but  it  is  now  extinct.  E.  L. 
Gale — he  built  the  railroad  freight-houses  at  Aspinwall  and  Panama  and  owned 
the  site  of  Joliet  and  half  the  land  on  which  Milwaukee  thrives— in  1854  pur- 
chased two-thousand  acres  of  bush  twenty-five  miles  from  Parkersburg.  In 
1866  the  celebrated  Shaw  well,  the  first  of  any  note  on  his  tract,  flowed  one- 
hundred  barrels  of  twenty-six-degree  oil.  Gale  sent  samples  to  the  Paris  Ex- 
position in  1867  and  received  the  only  gold-medal  awarded  for  natural  oils. 
The  Shaw  well  kicked  up  a  fuss,  leases  brought  large  bonuses,  excitement  ran 
high  and  the  "Gale  Oil  Field"  was  king  of  the  hour.  Land-grabbers  annoyed 
Gale,  who  declined  a  million  dollars  for  his  property.  He  routed  the  herd 
and  died  at  an  advanced  age,  leaving  his  heirs  ample  means  to  weather  the 
severest  financial  gale.  The  war  had  driven  northern  operators  from  the  field 
and  heavy-oil  developments  cleared  the  coast  for  the  next  act  on  the  program. 


ON   THE  SOUTHERN   TRAIL.  255 

Charles  B.  Traverneir,  in  the  spring  of  1883,  on  Rock  Run,  put  down  the 
first  deep  well  in  West  Virginia.  It  encountered  a  strong  flow  of  oil  at  twenty- 
one-hundred  feet  and  yielded  for  eleven  years.  Volcano  and  Parkersburg  had 
retired  and  light-oil  territory  was  the  object  of  the  ambitious  wildcatter.  At 
Eureka,  situated  in  a  plain  contiguous  to  the  Ohio  river,  Brown  &  Rose  struck 
the  third  sand  in  April,  1886,  at  thirteen-hundred  feet.  The  well  flowed  seven- 
hundred  barrels  of  forty-four-gravity  oil,  similar  to  the  Macksburg  variety 
and  equal  to  the  Pennsylvania  article  for  refining.  The  derrick  burned,  with 
the  tools  at  the  bottom  of  the  well,  and  the  yield  decreased  to  three-hundred 
barrels  in  May.  Oilmen  pronounced  Eureka  the  coming  oil-town  and  farmers 
asked  ridiculous  prices  for  their  lands.  Bradford  parties  leased  numerous 
tracts  and  bounced  the  drill  merrily.  The  third  sand  in  West  Virginia  was 
found  in  what  are  known  as  "oil  breaks,"  at  irregular  depths  and  sometimes 
cropping  out  upon  the  surface.  Eureka  is  still  a  center  of  activity.  The  sur- 
rounding country  resembles  the  Washington  district  in  appearance  and  fertility 
of  the  soil.  In  1891  Thomas  Mills,  who  operated  at  Tionesta  in  1862  and  at 
Macksburg  in  1883-4,  leased  a  bundle  of  lands  near  Sistersville  and  sank  a  well 
sixteen-hundred  feet.  A  glut  of  salt-water  induced  him  to  sell  out  cheap.  The 
first  important  results  were  obtained  on  the  Ohio  side  of  the  Ohio  river,  where 
many  wells  were  bored.  The  Polecat  well,  drilled  in  1890,  daily  pumped  fifty 
barrels  of  oil  and  two-thousand  of  salt-water,  bringing  Sistersville  forward  a 
peg.  Eight  wells  produced  a  thousand  barrels  of  green  oil  per  day  in  May  of 
1892.  Operating  was  costly  and  only  wealthy  individuals  or  companies  could 
afford  to  take  the  risks  of  opening  such  a  field.  Captain  J.  T.  Jones,  J.  M. 
Guffey,  Murphy  &  Jennings,  the  Carter  Oil-Company,  the  Devonian  Oil-Com- 
pany, the  Forest  Oil-Company  and  the  South- Penn  have  reduced  the  business 
to  an  exact  science  and  secured  a  large  production.  Sistersville,  named  from 
the  two  Welles  sisters,  who  once  owned  the  site  of  the  town,  has  been  a.  magnet 
to  petroleumites  for  two  years.  Gushers  worthy  of  Butler  or  Allegheny  have 
been  let  loose  in  Tyler,  Wood,  Monroe  and  Doddridge  counties.  The  Big 
Moses,  on  Indian  Creek,  is  a  first-class  gasser.  Morgantown,  Mannington  and 
Sistersville  are  as  familiar  names  as  McDonald,  Millerstown  or  Parker.  Pipe- 
lines handle  the  product  and  old-timers  from  Bradford,  Warren  and  Petrolia 
are  seen  at  every  turn.  West- Virginia  is  on  top  for  the  moment,  with  the  ten- 
dency southward  and  operators  eagerly  seeking  more  petroleum-worlds  to  con- 
quer in  Kentucky  and  Tennessee. 

She  was  a  radiant  Sistersville  girl.  She  descended  the  stairs  quietly  and 
laid  her  hand  on  the  knob  of  the  door,  hoping  to  steal  out  stealthily  in  the  gray 
dawn.  Her  father  stood  in  the  porch  and  she  was  discovered.  "My  daugh- 
ter," said  the  white-haired  old  gentleman,  "what  is  that — what  are  those  you 
have  on?"  She  hung  her  head  and  turned  the  door-knob  uneasily  back  and 
forth  between  her  fingers,  but  did  not  answer.  "Did  you  not  promise  me," 
the  old  man  went  on,  ' '  that  if  I  bought  you  a  bicycle  you  would  not  wear — 
that  is,  you  would  ride  in  skirts?"  She  stepped  impulsively  toward  him  and 
paused.  "Yes,  father,"  she  said,  "I  did  and  I  meant  it.  But  I  didn't  know 
these  then.  The  more  I  saw  of  them  the  better  I  liked  them.  They  improve 
on  acquaintance,  father.  They  grow  on  one "  "My  daughter,"  he  inter- 
rupted, "  Eve's  garments  grew  on  her  !"  And  so  it  has  been  with  the  West-Vir- 
ginia oil-field — it  grows  on  one  and  the  more  he  sees  of  it  the  better  he  likes  it. 

Butler,  the  county-seat  of  Butler  county,  was  laid  out  in  1802  by  the  Cun- 
ninghams, two  brothers  from  Lancaster,  who  repose  in  the  old  cemetery.  The 


256  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

surveyor  was  David  Dougall,  who  lived  seventy-five  years  alone,  in  a  shanty 
near  the  court-house,  dying  at  ninety-eight.  He  owned  a  row  of  tumble-down 
frames  on  the  public-square,  eye-sores  to  the  community,  but  would  not  sell  lest 
his  poor  tenants  might  suffer  by  a  change  of  proprietors  !  His  memory  of  local 
events  was  marvelous.  He  walked  from  Detroit  through  the  forest  to  Buller, 
following  an  Indian  trail,  and  remembered  when  Pittsburg  had  only  three  brick- 
buildings.  He  was  agent  of  the  McCandless  family  and  once  consented  to 
spend  a  night  at  the  mansion  of  his  friends  in  Pittsburg.  To  do  honor  to  the 
occasion  he  wore  trousers  made  of  striped  bed-ticking.  Fearing  fire,  he  would 
not  sleep  up-stairs  and  a  bed  was  provided  in  the  parlor.  About  midnight  an 
alarm  sounded.  Dougall  jumped  up,  grabbed  his  shoes  and  hat  and  walked 
home — thirty-three  miles — before  breakfast.  He  was  an  eccentric  bachelor  and 
had  his  coffin  ready  for  years.  It  was  constructed  of  oak,  grown  on  one  of  his 
farms,  which  he  willed  to  a  friend  upon  condition  that  the  legatee  buried  him  at 
the  foot  of  a  particular  tree  and  kept  a  night-watchman  at  his  grave  one  year. 
He  was  the  last  of  his  race  and  the  last  survivor  of  the  bold  pioneers  to  whom 
Butler  owed  its  settlement. 

The  Cecil  pool,  in  Washington  county,  furnishes  its  oil  from  the  fifty-foot 
sand.  One  well,  finished  last  April,  on  a  village  lot,  flowed  thirty-three  hun- 
dred barrels  in  twenty-four  hours.  The  biggest  strike  at  Legionville,  Beaver 
county,  was  Haymaker's  seven-hundred  barreler.  The  Shoustown  or  Shanno- 
pin  field,  also  in  Beaver,  sixteen  miles  south-east  of  Pittsburg,  is  owned  prin- 
cipally by  James  Amm  &  Co.  Tyler  county,  the  heart  of  the  West-Virginia 
region,  was  a  backwoods  district,  two  generations  behind  the  age  and  traveling 
at  an  ice-wagon  gait,  until  it  caught  "the  glow  of  the  light  to  come."  Its  be- 
ginning was  small,  but  men  who  sneer  at  small  things  merely  show  that  they 
have  sat  on  a  tack  and  been  worsted  in  the  fray.  It  has  taken  grit  and  perse- 
verance to  bring  a  hundred-thousand  barrels  of  oil  a  day  from  the  bowels  of 
the  earth  in  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  West-Virginia  and  Indiana.  The  man  who 
has  not  a  liberal  stock  of  these  qualities  should  steep  himself  in  brine  before 
engaging  in  oil-operations.  He  will  only  hit  the  nail  on  the  thumb  and  be  as 
badly  fooled  as  the  chump  who  deems  he  has  a  cinch  on  heaven  because  he 
never  stole  sheep.  Petroleum  is  all  right  and  a  long  way  from  its  ninth  in- 
ning. The  alarmist  who  thinks  it  is  playing  out  would  have  awakened  Noah 
with  the  cry  of  "Fire!" 

The  southern  trail,  with  its  magnificent  Butler  output,  its  Allegheny  geysers, 
its  sixteen-thousand  barrels  a  day  in  Washington  and  its  wonderful  strikes  in 
West- Virginia,  was  big  enough  to  fill  the  bill  and  lap  over  all  the  edges. 


WHERE  IGNORANCE  IS   BLISS. 

The  first  building  at  Triangle  bore  in  bold  letters  and  bad  spelling  a  sign 
labeled  "  Tryangle  Hotel." 

"A  Black  Justice  of  the  Peace"  ran  the  off-color  legend,  painted  by  an 
artist  not  up  in  punctuation,  on  the  weather-beaten  sign  of  'Squire  Black,  at 
Shippenville. 

An  honest  Dutchman  near  Turkey  City  declined  to  lease  his  farm  at  one- 
fourth  royalty,  insisting  upon  one-eighth  as  the  very  lowest  he  would  accept. 
He  did  not  discover  that  one-eighth  was  not  twice  one-fourth  until  he  received 
his  first  instalment  of  oil,  when  he  fired  off  the  simple  expletive,  "  Kreutz- 
millionendonnerwetter !" 

A  farmer  rather  shy  on  grammar,  who  represented  Butler  county  in  the 
Legislature  at  the  outset  of  developments  around  Petrolia,  "brought  down  the 
house"  and  a  unanimous  appropriation  by  his  maiden  speech  :  "Feller  citi- 
zens, if  we'uns  up  to  Butler  county  wuz  yu'uns  down  to  Harrisburg  we'uns 
would  give  yu'uns  what  we'uns  is  after  !" 

General  Reed,  of  Erie,  the  largest  vessel-owner  on  the  lakes,  represented 
his  district  in  Congress  and  desired  a  second  term.  The  Democrats  nominated 
Judge  Thompson  and  Clarion  county  was  the  pivot  upon  which  the  election 
turned.  The  contest  waxed  furious.  Near  its  close  the  two  candidates  brought 
up  at  a  big  meeting  in  the  wilds  of  Clarion  to  debate.  Lumbermen  and  fur- 
nacemen  were  out  in  force.  Reed  led  off  and  on  the  homestretch  told  the  peo- 
ple how  he  loved  them  and  their  county.  He  had  built  the  fastest  craft  on  the 
lakes  and  named  the  vessel  Clarion.  As  the  craft  sailed  from  Buffalo  to  Erie, 
and  from  Cleveland  to  Detroit,  and  from  Saginaw  to  Mackinaw,  to  Oconomowoc 
and  Manitowoc,  Oshkosh,  Milwaukee  and  Chicago,  in  every  port  she  folded  her 
white  wings  and  told  of  the  county  that  honored  him  with  a  seat  in  Congress. 
The  people  were  untutored  in  nautical  affairs  and  listened  with  rapt  attention. 
As  the  General  closed  his  speech  the  enthusiasm  was  unbounded.  Things 
looked  blue  for  Judge  Thompson.  After  a  few  moments  required  to  get  the 
audience  out  of  the  seventh  heaven  of  rapture,  he  stepped  to  the  front  of  the 
platform,  leaned  over  it,  motioned  to  the  crowd  to  come  up  close  and  said: 
"Citizens  of  Clarion,  what  General  Reed  has  told  you  is  true.  He  has  built  a 
brig  and  a  grand  one.  But  where  do  you  suppose  he  painted  the  proud  name 
of  Clarion?"  Turning  to  General  Reed,  he  said,  "Stand  up  here,  sir,  and  tell 
these  honest  people  where  you  had  the  painter  put  the  name  of  Clarion.  You 
never  thought  the  truth  would  reach  back  here.  I  shall  tell  these  people  the 
truth  and  I  challenge  you  to  deny  one  word  of  it.  Yes,  fellow-citizens,  he  painted 
the  proud  name  of  Clarion  under  the  stern  of  the  brig — under  her  stern,  gentle- 
men !"  The  indignation  of  the  people  found  vent  in  groans  and  curses.  Gen- 
eral Reed  sat  stunned  and  speechless.  No  excuses  would  be  accepted  and  the 
vote  of  proud  Clarion  made  Judge  Thompson  a  Congressman. 


XL 


FROM   THE  WELL  TO  THE  LAMP. 

TRANSPORTING  CRUDE-OIL  BY  WAGONS  AND  BOATS— UNFATHOMABLE  MUD  AND 
SWEARING  TEAMSTERS— POND  FRESHETS— ESTABLISHMENT  OF  PIPE-LINES— 
NATIONAL-TRANSIT  COMPANY  AND  SOME  OF  ITS  OFFICERS — SPECULATION  IN 
CERTIFICATES— EXCHANGES  AT  PROMINENT  POINTS — THE  PRODUCT  THAT 
ILLUMINES  THE  WORLD  AT  VARIOUS  STAGES  OF  PROGRESS. 


"My  kingdom  for  a  horse  lo  haul  my  oil." — Richard  III.  Revised 
"We'll  all  dip  oil,  and  we'll  all  dip  oil, 

We'll  dip,  dip,  dip,  and  we'll  all  dip  oil."—  Pond-Freshet  Song. 
"  Lines  of  truth  run  through  the  world  of  thought  as  pipe-lines  to  the  sea."— Mrs.  C.  A.  Babcock. 

"  These  be  piping  times." — Popular  Saw. 

"  Seneca  predicted  another  hemisphere,  but  Columbus  presented  it." — Collins. 
"  Nature  begets  Merit  and  Fortune  brings  it  into  play."— La  Rochefoucauld. 
"  The  wise  and  active  conquer  difficulties  by  daring  to  attempt  them."— Rowe. 
Perfection  is  attained  by  slow  degrees." — Voltaire. 
"  One  little  bull  on  oil  was  I, 
Bought  a  lot  when  the  stuff  was  high, 
Sold  when  low  and  it  pump'd  me  dry. 

One  little  bull  on  oil. "—Oil- City  Blizzard. 
"It  is  just  as  dangerous  to  speculate  in  kerosene  as  to  kindle  the  fire  with  it."— Boston  Herald. 


HE  tribulations  of  early  operators  did  not 
cease  with  drilling  and  tubing  their  wells. 
Oil  might  flow  or  be  pumped  readily,  but 
it  could  neither  transport  nor  sell  itself. 
Crude  in  the  tank  was  not  always  money 
in  the  purse  without  a  good  deal  of  engineer- 
ing. The  Irishman's  contrary  pig,  which  he 
headed  for  Cork  to  drive  to  Dublin,  was  much 
less  trouble  to  raise  than  to  get  to  market. 
The  first  wells  on  Oil  Creek  were  so  close  to 
the  water  that  the  stuff  could  be  loaded  di- 
rectly into  canoes  or  dug-outs  and  floated  to 
the  mouth  of  the  stream.  This  arrangement, 
despite  its  apparent  convenience,  had  serious 
drawbacks.  The  creek  was  too  low  in  dry 
weather  for  navigation,  except  possibly  by  the 
Mississippi  craft  that  slipped  along  easily  on  the  morning  dew.  To  overcome 
this  difficulty  recourse  was  had  to  artificial  methods  when  the  production  in- 
creased sufficiently  to  introduce  flat-boats,  which  dispensed  with  barrels  and 
freighted  the  oil  in  bulk.  The  system  of  pond-freshets  was  adopted.  A  dam  at 
the  saw-mill  near  the  Drake  well  stored  the  fluid  until  the  time  agreed  upon  to 

259 


J.    N.    WHEELER. 


260 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE   OIL. 


open  the  gates  and  let  the  imprisoned  waters  escape.  Rev.  A.  L.  Dubbs  was 
appointed  superintendent  and  shippers  were  assessed  for  the  use  of  the  water 
stored  in  the  pond.  Usually  two-hundred  to  eight-hundred  boats — boats  of  all 
shapes  and  sizes,  from  square-keeled  barges,  divided  into  compartments  by 
cross-partitions,  to  slim-pointed  guipers — were  pulled  up  the  stream  by  horses 
once  or  twice  a  week  to  be  filled  at  the  wells  and  await  the  rushing  waters. 
Expert  rivermen,  accustomed  to  dodging  snags  and  rocks  in  inland  streams, 
managed  the  fleet.  These  skilled  pilots  assumed  the  responsibility  of  deliver- 
ing the  oil  to  the  larger  boats  at  Oil  City,  for  conveyance  to  Pittsburg,  at  one- 
hundred  to  two-hundred  dollars  per  trip. 

At  the  appointed  moment  the  flood-gates  were  opened  and  the  water  rushed 
forth,  increasing  the  depth  of  the  creek  two  or  three  feet.  The  boatmen  stood 
by  their  lines,  to  cast  loose  when  the  current  was  precisely  right.  Sound  judg- 
ment was  required.  The  loaded  boat,  if  let  go  too  soon,  ran  the  risk  of  ground- 
ing in  the  first  shallow-place,  to  be  battered  into  kindling-wood  by  those  coming 
after.  Such  accidents  occurred  frequently,  resulting  in  a  general  jam  and  loss 


POND   FRESHET   AT  OIL  CITY,   MOUTH   OF  OIL  CREEK. 

of  vessels  and  cargoes.  The  scene  was  more  exciting  than  a  three-ringed  cir- 
cus. Property  and  life  were  imperiled,  boats  were  ground  to  fragments,  thou- 
sands of  barrels  of  oil  were  spilled  and  the  tangle  seemed  inextricable.  Men, 
women  and  children  lined  the  banks  of  the  stream  for  miles,  intently  watching 
the  spectacle.  Persons  of  all  nationalities,  kindreds  and  conditions  vociferated 
in  their  diversified  jargon,  producing  a  confusion  of  tongues  that  outbabeled 
Babel  three  to  one.  Men  of  wealth  and  refinement,  bespattered  and  besmeared 
with  crude — their  trousers  tucked  into  boots  reaching  above  the  knee,  and  most 
likely  wearing  at  the  same  time  a  nobby  necktie— might  be  seen  boarding  the 
boats  with  the  agility  of  a  cat  and  the  courage  of  warriors,  shouting,  managing, 
directing  and  leading  in  the  perilous  work  of  safe  exit.  Sunday  creeds  were 
forgotten  and  the  third  commandment,  constantly  snapped  in  twain,  gave  em- 
phasis to  the  crashing  hulks  and  barrels.  A  pillar  of  the  Presbyterian  church, 


FROM  THE    WELL    TO    THE  LAMP.  261 

seeing  his  barge  unmanned,  ran  screaming  at  the  top  of  his  voice  :  "  Where  in 
sheol  is  Parker?"  This  so  amused  his  good  brethren  that  they  used  it  as  a 
by-word  for  months. 

The  cry  of  "Pond  Freshet"  would  bring  the  entire  population  of  Oil  City 
to  witness  the  arrival  of  the  boats.  Sometimes  the  tidal  wave  would  force  them 
on  a  sand-bar  in  the  Allegheny,  smashing  and  crushing  them  like  egg-shells. 
Oil  from  overturned  or  demolished  boats  belonged  to  whoever  chose  to  dip  it 
up.  More  than  one  solid  citizen  got  his  start  on  fortune's  road  by  dipping  oil  in 
this  way.  If  the  voyage  ended  safely  the  oil  was  transferred  from  the  guipers — 
fifty  barrels  each — and  small  boats  to  larger  ones  for  shipment  to  Pittsburg. 
William  Phillips,  joint-owner  of  the  biggest  well  on  Oil  Creek,  was  the  first  man 
to  take  a  cargo  of  crude  in  bulk  to  the  Smoky  City.  The  pond-freshet  was  a 
great  institution  in  its  day,  with  romantic  features  that  would  enrapture  an 
artist  and  tickle  lovers  of  sensation  to  the  fifth  rib.  One  night  the  lantern  of  a 
careless  workman  set  fire  to  the  oil  in  one  of  the  boats.  Others  caught  and 
were  cut  loose  to  drift  down  the  river,  floating  up  against  a  pier  and  burning  the 
bridge  at  Franklin.  Running  the  "rapids"  on  the  St.  Lawrence  river  or  the 
"  Long  Sault "  on  the  Ottawa  was  not  half  so  thrilling  and  hair-raising  as  a  fleet 
of  oil-boats  in  a  crush  at  the  mouth  of  Oil  Creek. 

The  fleet  of  creek  and  river-boats  engaged  in  this  novel  traffic  numbered 
two-thousand  craft.  The  "guiper,"  scow-shaped  and  holding  twenty-five  to 
fifty  barrels,  was  the  smallest.  The  "French  Creekers  "  held  ten  to  twelve- 
hundred  barrels  and  were  arranged  to  carry  oil  in  bulk  or  barrels.  At  first  the 
crude  was  run  into  open  boats,  which  a  slight  motion  of  the  water  would  some- 
times capsize  and  spill  the  cargo  into  the  stream.  When  prices  ruled  low  oil 
was  shipped  in  bulk  ;  when  high,  shippers  used  barrels  to  lessen  the  danger  of 
loss.  Thousands  of  empty  barrels,  lashed  together  like  logs  in  a  raft,  were 
floated  from  Olean.  The  rate  from  the  more  distant  wells  to  Oil  City  was  one- 
dollar  a  barrel.  From  Oil  City  to  Pittsburg  it  varied  from  twenty- five  cents  to 
three  dollars,  according  to  the  weather,  the  stage  of  water  or  the  activity  of  the 
demand.  Each  pond-freshet  cost  two  or  three-hundred  dollars,  paid  to  the 
mill-owners  for  storing  the  water  and  the  use  of  their  dams.  Twice  a  week — 
Wednesday  and  Saturday — was  the  average  at  the  busy  season.  The  flood  of 
petroleum  from  flowing-wells  in  1862  exceeded  the  facilities  for  storing,  trans- 
porting, refining  and  burning  the  oil ,  which  dropped  to  ten  cents  a  barrel  dur- 
ing the  summer.  Thousands  of  barrels  ran  into  Oil  Creek.  Pittsburg  was  the 
chief  market  for  crude,  which  was  transferred  at  Oil  City  to  the  larger  boats. 
The  steamer-fleet  of  tow-boats — it  exceeded  twenty— brought  the  empties  back 
to  Oil  City.  The  "Echo,"  Captain  Ezekiel  Gordon;  the  "Allegheny  Belle 
No.  4,"  Captain  John  Hanna;  the  "Leclaire,"  Captain  Kelly;  the  "Ida  Rees," 
Captain  Rees,  and  the  "  Venango  "  were  favorite  passenger-steamers.  The  trip 
from  Pittsburg — one-hundred-and-thirty-three  miles— generally  required  thirty 
to  thirty-six  hours.  Mattresses  on  the  cabin-floor  served  as  beds  for  thirty  or 
forty  male  passengers,  who  did  not  undress  and  rose  early  that  the  tables  might 
be  set  for  breakfast.  The  same  tables  were  utilized  between  meals  and  in  the 
evening  for  poker-games.  The  busiest  man  on  the  boat  was  the  bar-tender 
and  the  clerk  was  the  most  important.  He  carried  letters  and  money  for  lead- 
ing oil-shippers.  It  was  not  uncommon  for  Alfred  Russell,  of  the  "  Echo,"  John 
Thompson,  of  the  "  Belle  No.  4,"  and  Ruse  Russ,  of  the  "Venango,"  to  walk 
into  Hanna's  or  Abrams's  warehouse-office  with  large  packages  of  money  for 
John  J.  Fisher,  William  Lecky,  John  Mawhinney,  William  Thompson  and 


262  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE  OIL. 

others  who  bought  oil.  No  receipts  were  given  or  taken  and,  notwithstanding 
the  apparent  looseness  in  doing  business,  no  package  was  ever  lost  or  stolen. 
The  boats  usually  landed  at  the  lower  part  of  the  eddy  to  put  off  passengers 
wishing  to  stop  at  the  Moran  and  Parker  Hotels.  At  Hanna  &  Co.'s  and 
Abrams  &  Co.'s  landing,  where  the  northern  approach  of  the  suspension  bridge 
now  is,  they  put  off  the  remaining  passengers,  freight  and  empty  oil-barrels. 
Many  a  Christian-looking  man  was  heard  to  swear  as  he  left  the  gang-plank  of 
the  boat  and  struck  the  mud,  tough  and  greasy  and  deep.  He  would  soon 
tumble  to  the  situation,  roll  up  his  trousers  and  "pull  for  the  shore." 

Horses  and  mules  dragged  the  empty  boats  up  Oil  Creek,  a  terrible  task  in 
cold  weather.  Slush  or  ice  and  floating  oil  shaved  the  hair  off  the  poor  animals 
as  if  done  with  a  razor.  The  treatment  of  the  patient  creatures— thousands 
were  literally  murdered— was  frightful  and  few  survived.  For  them  the  plea  of 
inability  availed  nothing.  They  were  worked  until  they  dropped  dead.  The 
finest  mule,  ears  very  long,  coat  shiny,  tail  vehement,  eye  mischievous,  heels 
vigorous  and  bray  distinct  and  melodious,  quickly  succumbed  to  the  freezing 
water  and  harsh  usage.  As  a  single  trip  realized  more  than  would  buy  an- 
other the  brutal  driver  scarcely  felt  the  financial  loss.  A  story  is  told  of  a  boat- 
man who  started  in  the  morning  for  the  wells  to  bring  down  a  load  of  oil. 
Returning  in  the  evening,  he  learned  that  he  had  been  drafted  into  the  army. 
Before  retiring  to  bed  he  had  hired  a  substitute  for  one-thousand  dollars,  the 
proceeds  of  his  journey  of  eleven  miles  and  back.  William  Haldeman  hauled 
a  man  over  the  coals  for  beating  his  exhausted  horse,  told  him  to  buy  another 
and  handed  him  five-hundred  dollars  for  eight  horses  to  haul  a  boat  to  the 
gushers  at  Funkville. 

Pond-freshets  were  holidays  in  Oil  City  sufficiently  memorable  to  go  glid- 
ing down  the  ages  with  the  biggest  kind  of  chalk-mark.  Young  and  old  flocked 
to  see  the  boats  slip  into  the  Allegheny,  lodge  on  the  gravel-bar,  strike  the  pier 
of  the  bridge  or  anchor  in  Moran's  Eddy.  Hundreds  of  boatmen,  drillers, 
pumpers  and  operators  would  be  on  board.  Once  the  river  had  only  a  foot  of 
water  at  Scrubgrass  Ripple  and  large  boats  could  not  get  to  or  from  Pittsburg. 
A  ship-carpenter  came  from  New  York  to  Titusville  and  spent  his  last  dollar  in 
lumber  for  six  boxes  sixteen  feet  square  and  twelve  inches  deep.  He  covered 
them  with  inch-boards  and  divided  them  into  small  compartments,  to  prevent 
the  oil  from  running  from  one  end  to  the  other  and  swamping  the  vessel.  This 
principle  was  applied  to  oil-boats  thereafter  and  extended  to  bulk-barges  and 
bulk-steamships.  The  ingenious  carpenter  floated  his  strange  arks  down  to 
the  Blood  farm  and  bargained  with  Henry  Balliott  to  fill  them  on  credit.  He 
performed  the  voyage  safely,  returned  in  due  course,  paid  Balliott,  built  more 
boxes  and  went  home  in  four  months  with  a  snug  fortune.  His  ship  had  come 
in.  Railroads  and  pipe-lines  have  relegated  pond-freshets,  oil-boats  and  Alle- 
gheny steamers  to  the  rear,  but  they  were  interesting  features  of  the  petroleum- 
development  in  early  days  and  should  not  be  utterly  forgotten. 

To  haul  oil  from  inland  wells  to  shipping-points  required  thousands  of 
horses.  This  service  originated  the  wagon-train  of  the  oil-country,  which  at  its 
best  consisted  of  six-thousand  two-horse  teams  and  wagons.  No  such  trans- 
port-service was  ever  before  seen  outside  of  an  army  on  a  march.  General 
M.  H.  Avery,  a  renowned  cavalry-commander  during  the  war,  organized  a 
regular  army-train  at  Pithole.  Travelers  in  the  oil-regions  seldom  lost  sight  of 
these  endless  trains  of  wagons  bearing  their  greasy  freight  to  the  nearest  rail- 
road or  shipping-point.  Five  to  seven  barrels— a  barrel  of  oil  weighed  three- 


FROM   THE    WELL   TO  THE  LAMP.  263 

hundred-and-sixty  pounds — taxed  the  strength  of  the  stoutest  teams.  The 
mud  was  practically  bottomless.  Horses  sank  to  their  breasts  and  wagons  far 
above  their  axles.  Oil  dripping  from  innumerable  barrels  mixed  with  the  dirt 
to  keep  the  mass  a  perpetual  paste,  which  destroyed  the  capillary  glands  and 
the  hair  of  the  animals.  Many  horses  and  mules  had  not  a  hair  below  the  eyes. 
A  long  caravan  of  these  hairless  beasts  gave  a  spectral  aspect  to  the  land- 
scape. History  records  none  other  such  roads.  Houses  within  a  quarter- 
mile  of  the  roadside  were  plastered  with  mud  to  the  eaves.  Many  a  horse  fell 
into  the  batter  and  was  left  to  smother.  If  a  wagon  broke  the  load  was  dumped 
into  the  mud-canal,  or  set  on  the  bank  to  be  taken  by  whoever  thought  it  worth 
the  labor  of  stealing.  Teamsters  would  pull  down  fences  and  drive  through 
fields  whenever  possible,  until  the  valley  of  Oil  Creek  was  an  unfathomable 
quagmire.  Think  of  the  bone  and  sinew  expended  in  moving  a  thousand  bar- 
rels of  oil  six  or  eight  miles  under  such  conditions.  Two-thirds  of  the  work 
had  to  be  done  in  the  fall  and  winter,  when  the  elements  spared  no  effort  to 
increase  the  discomfort  and  difficulty  of  navigation  by  boat  or  wagon.  To  haul 
oil  a  half-dozen  miles  cost  three  to  five  dollars  a  barrel  at  certain  periods  of  the 
year.  Thousands  of  barrels  were  drawn  to  Shaw's  Landing,  near  Meadville, 
and  thousands  to  Garland  Station  and  Union  City,  on  the  Philadelphia  &  Erie 
Railroad.  The  hauling  of  a  few  hundred  barrels  not  infrequently  consumed  so 
much  time  that  the  shipper,  in  the  rapid  fluctuations  of  the  market,  would  not 
realize  enough  to  pay  the  wagon-freight.  A  buyer  once  paid  ten-thousand  dol- 
lars for  one-thousand  barrels  at  Clapp  farm,  above  Oil  City,  and  four-thousand 
for  teaming  it  to  Franklin,  to  be  shipped  by  the  Atlantic  &  Great  Western  Rail- 
road to  New  York.  Even  after  a  plank-road  had  been  built  from  Titusville  to 
Pithole,  cutting  down  the  teaming  one-half  or  more,  the  cost  of  laying  down  a 
barrel  of  crude  in  New  York  was  excessive.  In  January  of  1866  it  figured  as 
follows  : 

Government  tax |i  oo 

Barrel , 3  25 

Teaming  from  Pithole  to  Titusville I  25 

Freight  from  Titusville  to  New  York 3  65 

Cooperage  and  platform  expenses i  oo 

Leakage 25 

Total $10  40 

The  Oil  Creek  teamster,  rubber-booted  to  the  waist  and  flannel-shirted  to 
the  chin,  was  a  picturesque  character.  He  was  skilled  in  profanity  and  the 
savage  use  of  the  whip.  A  week's  earnings— ten,  twenty  and  thirty  dollars  a 
day — he  would  spend  in  revelry  on  Saturday  night.  Careless  of  the  present 
and  heedless  of  the  future,  he  took  life  as  it  came  and  wasted  no  time  worrying 
over  consequences.  If  one  horse  died  he  bought  another.  He  regulated  his 
charges  by  the  depth  and  consistency  of  the  mud  and  the  wear  and  tear  of 
morality  and  live-stock.  Eventually  he  followed  the  flat-boat  and  barge  and 
guiper  to  oblivion,  railroads  and  pipe-lines  supplanting  him  as  a  carrier  of  oil. 
Some  of  the  best  operators  in  the  region  adopted  teaming  temporarily,  to  get 
a  start.  They  saved  their  money  for  interests  in  leases  or  drilling-wells  and 
not  a  few  went  to  the  front  as  successful  producers.  The  free-and-easy,  devil- 
may-care  teamster  of  yore,  brimful  of  oil  and  tobacco  and  not  averse  to 
whiskey,  is  a  tradition,  remembered  only  by  men  whose  polls  are  frosting  with 
silver  threads  that  do  not  stop  at  sixteen  to  one. 

Wharves,  warehouses  and  landings  crowded  Oil  City  from  the  mouth  of 
Oil  Creek  to  the-Moran  House.  Barrels  filled  the  warehouse- yards,  awaiting 
18 


264  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

their  turn  to  be  hauled  or  boated  to  the  wells,  filled  with  crude  and  returned 
for  shipment.  Loaded  and  empty  boats  were  coming  and  going  continually. 
Firms  and  individuals  shipped  thousands  of  barrels  daily,  employing  a  regi- 
ment of  men  and  stacks  of  cash.  William  M.  Lecky,  still  a  respected  citizen  of 
Oil  City,  hustled  for  R  D.  Cochran  &  Co.,  whose  "Tiber"  was  a  favorite  tow- 
boat.  Parker  &  Thompson,  Fisher  Brothers,  Mawhinney  Brothers  and  John 
Munhall  &  Co.  were  strong  concerns.  Their  agents  scoured  the  producing 
farms  to  buy  oil  at  the  wells  and  arrange  for  its  delivery.  Prices  fluctuated 
enormously.  Crude  bought  in  September  of  1862  at  thirty  cents  a  barrel  sold 
in  December  at  eleven  dollars.  John  B.  Smithman,  Munhall's  buyer,  walked 
up  the  creek  one  morning  to  buy  what  he  could  at  three  dollars.  A  dispatch  at 
Rouseville  told  him  to  pay  four,  if  necessary  to  secure  what  the  firm  desired. 
At  Tarr  Farm  another  message  quoted  five  dollars.  By  the  time  he  reached 
Petroleum  Centre  the  price  had  reached  six  dollars  and  his  last  pm  chases  that 
afternoon  were  at  seven-fifty.  Business  was  done  on  honor  and  every  agree- 
ment was  fulfilled  to  the  letter,  whether  the  price  rose  or  fell.  Lecky,  Thomas 
B.  Simpson,  W.  J.  Young  and  Isaac  M.  Sowers— he  was  the  second  mayor  of 
Oil  City — clerked  in  these  shipping-offices,  which  proved  admirable  training- 
schools  for  ambitious  youths.  William  Porterfield  and  T.  Preston  Miller 
tramped  over  Oil  Creek  and  Cherry  Run  for  the  Fishers.  Col.  A.  J.  Greenfield, 
Bradley  &  Whiting  and  I.  S.  Gibson  bought  at  Rouseville  and  R.  Richardson  at 
Tarr  Farm.  "  Pres  "  Miller,  "Hi"  Whiting  and  "  Ike"  Gibson — square,  manly 
and  honorable — are  treading  the  golden-streets.  John  Mawhinney — big  in  soul 
and  body,  true  to  the  core  and  upright  in  every  fiber— has  voyaged  to  the  haven 
of  rest.  William  Parker  is  president  of  the  Oil  City  Savings  Bank  and  Thomp- 
son returned  east  years  ago.  John  Munhall  settled  near  Philadelphia  and  Wil- 
liam Haldeman  removed  to  Cleveland.  The  iron-horse  and  the  pipe-line  revo- 
lutionized the  methods  of  handling  crude  and  retired  the  shippers,  most  of 
whom  have  shipped  across  the  sea  of  time  into  the  ocean  of  eternity. 

Fisher  Brothers  have  a  long  and  enviable  record  as  shippers  and  producers 
of  oil,  "staying  the  distance"  and  keeping  the  pole  in  the  hottest  race.  Men 
have  come  and  men  have  retreated  in  the  mad  whirl  of  speculation  and  wild 
rush  for  the  bottom  of  the  sand,  but  they  have  gone  on  steadily  for  a  genera- 
tion and  are  to-day  abreast  of  the  situation.  Whether  a  district  etched  its  name 
on  the  Rainbow  of  Fame  or  mocked  the  dreams  of  the  oil-seeker,  they  did  not 
lose  their  heads  or  their  credit.  John  J.  Fisher  went  to  Oil  City  in  1862  and 
Fisher  Brothers  began  shipping  oil  by  the  river  to  Pittsburg  in  1863,  succeeding 
John  Burgess  &  Co.  The  three  brothers  divided  their  forces,  to  give  each  de- 
partment personal  supervision,  John  J.  managing  the  buying  and  shipping  at 
Oil  City  and  Frederick  and  Henry  receiving  and  disposing  of  the  cargoes  at 
Pittsburg.  Competent  men  bought  crude  at  the  wells  and  handled  it  in  the 
yards  and  on  the  boats.  The  firm  owned  a  fleet  of  bulk-boats  and  tow-boats 
and  acres  of  barrels.  Each  barrel  was  branded  with  a  huge  F  on  either  head. 
The  "  Big  F  " — widely  known  as  Oil  Creek  or  the  Drake  well — was  the  trade- 
mark of  fair  play  and  spot  cash.  When  railroads  were  built  the  Fishers  dis- 
carded boats  and  used  more  barrels  than  before.  When  wooden-tanks — a  car 
held  two — were  introduced  they  adopted  them  and  let  the  barrels  slide.  When 
pipe-lines  were  laid  they  purchased  certificate-oil  and  continued  to  be  large 
shippers  until  seaboard  lines  suspended  the  older  systems  of  freighting  crude 
by  water  or  rail,  in  barrels  or  in  tanks.  From  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the 
shipping-trade  Fisher  Brothers  were  in  the  van. 


FROM  THE    WELL    TO    THE  LAMP. 


265 


Next  devoting  their  attention  entirely  to  the  production  of  oil  and  gas,  with 
the  Grandins  and  Adnah  Neyhart  they  invested  heavily  at  Fagundas  and  laid 
the  first  pipe-line  at  Tidioute.  They  operated  below  Franklin  and  were  pio- 
neers at  Petrolia.  Organizing  the  Fisher  Oil-Company,  they  drilled  in  all  the 
Butler  pools  and  held  large  interests  at  McDonald  and  Washington.  At  pres- 
ent they  are  operating  in  Pennsylvania,  Ohio  and  West  Virginia,  the  Fisher 
ranking  with  the  foremost  companies  in  extent  and  solidity.  The  brothers 
have  their  headquarters  in  the  Germania  Building,  Pittsburg,  and  juicy  wells  in 
a  dozen  counties.  Time  has  dealt  kindly  with  all  three,  as  well  as  with  Daniel 
Fisher,  ex-mayor  of  Oil  City.  They  have  loads  of  experience  and  capital  and 
too  much  energy  to  think  of  adjusting  their  halo  for  retirement  from  active 
work.  True  men  in  all  the  relations  of  life,  Fisher  Brothers  worthily  represent 


the  splendid  industry  they  have  had  no  mean  part  in  making  the  greatest  and 
grandest  of  any  age  or  nation.  To  natural  shrewdness  and  the  quick  percep- 
tion that  comes  from  contact  with  the  activities  of  the  world  they  joined  busi- 
ness-ability that  would  have  proved  successful  in  whatever  career  they  under- 
took to  map  out. 

The  first  suggestion  of  improvement  in  transportation  was  made  in  1860,  at 
Parkersburg,  W.  Va.,  by  General  Karns  to  C.  L.  Wheeler,  now  of  Bradford. 
An  old  salt-well  Karns  had  resurrected  at  Burning  Springs  pumped  oil  freely 
and  he  conceived  the  plan  of  a  six-inch  line  of  pipe  to  Parkersburg  to  run  the 
product  by  gravity.  The  war  interfered  and  the  project  was  not  carried  out. 
At  a  meeting  at  Tarr  Farm,  in  November  of  1861,  Heman  Janes  broached  the 
idea  of  laying  a  line  of  four-inch  wooden-pipes  to  Oil  City,  to  obviate  the  risk, 
expense  and  uncertainty  of  transporting  oil  by  boats  or  wagons.  He  proposed 
to  bury  the  pipe  in  a  trench  along  the  bank  of  the  creek  and  let  the  oil  gravi- 


266  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

tate  to  its  destination.  A  contract  for  the  entire  work  was  drawn  with  James 
Reed,  of  Erie.  Col.  Clark,  of  Clark  &  Sumner,  grasped  the  vast  possibilities 
the  method  might  involve  and  advised  applying  to  the  Legislature  for  a  general 
pipe-line  charter.  Reed's  contract  was  not  signed  and  a  bill  was  introduced  in 
1862  to  authorize  the  construction  of  a  pipe-line  from  Oil  Creek  to  Kittanning. 
The  opposition  of  four-thousand  teamsters  engaged  in  hauling  oil  defeated  the 
bill  and  the  first  effort  to  organize  a  pipe-line  company. 

J.  L.  Hutchings,  a  Jersey  genius,  came  to  the  oil-country  in  the  spring  of 
1862  with  a  rotary-pump  he  had  patented.  To  show  its  adaptation  to  the  oil- 
business  he  laid  a  string  of  tubing  from  Tarr  Farm  to  the  Humboldt  Refinery, 
below  Plumer.  He  set  his  pump  working  and  sent  a  stream  of  crude  over  the 
hills  to  the  refinery.  The  pipe  was  of  poor  quality,  the  joints  leaked  and  a 
good  deal  of  oil  fell  by  the  wayside,  yet  the  experiment  showed  that  the  idea 
was  feasible.  Although  eminent  engineers  declared  friction  would  be  fatal,  the 
result  proved  that  distance  and  grade  were  not  insurmountable.  Eminent  engi- 
neers had  declared  the  locomotive  would  not  run  on  smooth  rails  and  that  a 
cow  on  the  track  would  disrupt  George  Stephenson's  whole  system  of  travel, 
hence  their  dictum  regarding  pipe-lines  had  little  weight.  Dr.  Dionysius 
Lardner  nearly  burst  a  flue  laughing  at  the  absurdity  of  a  vessel  without  sails 
crossing  the  ocean  and  wrote  a  treatise  to  demonstrate  its  impossibility,  but  the 
saucy  Sirius  steamed  over  the  herring-pond  .all  the  same.  The  rotary-pump  at 
Tarr  Farm  confounded  the  scientists  who  worshipped  theory  and  believed  fric- 
tion would  knock  out  steam  and  pipe  and  American  ingenuity  and  keep  oil- 
operators  forever  subject  to  mud  and  pond-freshets.  The  two-inch  line  to  the 
Humboldt  Refinery  planted  the  seed  that  was  to  become  a  great  tree.  Nobody 
saw  this  more  plainly  than  the  teamsters,  who  proceeded  to  tear  up  the  pipe 
and  warn  producers  to  quit  monkeying  with  new-fangled  methods  of  transpor- 
tation. That  settled  the  first  pipe-line  and  left  the  rampant  teamsters,  modern 
imitators  of  "Demetrius  the  silversmith,"  the  upper  dog  in  the  fight. 

Hutchings — the  boys  called  him  "Hutch" — had  pump  and  pipe-line  on 
the  brain  and  would  not  be  suppressed.  He  put  down  a  line  in  1863  from  the 
big  Sherman  well  to  the  terminus  of  the  railroad  at  Miller  Farm.  The  pipes 
were  cast-iron,  connected  by  lead-sockets  and  laid  in  a  shallow  ditch.  The 
jarring  of  the  pump  loosened  the  joints  and  three-fourths  of  the  oil  started  at  the 
well  failed  to  reach  the  tanks,  two  miles  north.  The  teamsters  were  not  in 
business  solely  for  their  health  and  they  tore  up  the  line  to  be  sure  it  would  not 
cut  off  any  of  their  revenue.  Hutchings  persisted  in  his  endeavors  until  debts 
overwhelmed  him  and  he  died  penniless  and  disappointed.  The  ill-starred 
inventor,  who  lived  a  trifle  ahead  of  the  times,  deserves  a  bronze  statue  on  a 
shaft  of  imperishable  granite. 

The  Legislature  granted  a  pipe-line  charter  in  1864  to  the  Western  Trans- 
portation Company,  which  laid  a  line  from  the  Noble  &  Delemater  well  to 
Shaffer.  The  cast-iron  pipe,  five  inches  in  diameter,  was  laid  on  a  regular 
grade  in  the  mode  of  a  water-pipe.  The  lead  points  leaked  like  a  fifty-cent 
umbrella,  just  as  the  Hutchings  line  had  done,  and  the  attempt  to  improve 
transportation  was  abandoned. 

Samuel  Van  Syckle,  a  Jerseyite  of  inventive  bent,  arrived  at  Titusville  in 
the  fall  of  1864.  The  problem  of  oil-transportation,  rendered  especially  impor- 
tant by  the  opening  of  the  Pithole  field,  soon  engrossed  his  attention.  In 
August  of  1865  he  completed  a  two-inch  line  from  Pithole  to  Miller  Farm.  Mr. 
Wood  and  Henry  Ohlen,  of  New  York,  held  an  interest  and  the  First  National 


FROM  THE   WELL    TO   THE  LAMP.  267 

Bank  of  Titusville  loaned  the  money  to  forward  the  project.  J.  N.  Wheeler 
screwed  the  first  joints  together.  Two  pump-stations,  a  mile  west  of  Pithole 
and  at  Cherry  Run,  at  first  helped  force  the  oil  through  the  pipe,  which  was 
buried  two  feet  under  ground  "to  be  out  of  the  way  of  the  farmer's  plow." 
Eight-hundred  barrels  a  day  could  be  run  and  the  frantic  teamsters  talked  of 
resorting  to  violence  to  cripple  so  formidable  a  rival.  The  pipeage  was  one  dol- 
lar a  barrel,  at  which  rate  the  Pithole  and  Miller  Farm  Pipe-Line  ought  to  have 
been  a  bonanza.  Van  Syckle  traded  heavily  in  oil  and  commanded  plenty  of 
capital.  A.  W.  Smiley  managed  the  line  and  bought  oil  for  Van  Syckle,  who 
conducted  this  branch  of  business  in  his  son's  name.  Smiley's  largest  transac- 
tion was  a  purchase  of  one-hundred-thousand  barrels,  at  five  dollars  a  barrel, 
from  the  United-States  Petroleum  Company,  in  one  lot.  Young  Van  Syckle 
spent  money  as  the  whim  struck  him.  If  Smiley  refused  his  demand  for  a  hun- 
dred or  a  thousand  dollars,  the  fly  youth  would  refuse  to  sign  drafts  and  threaten 
to  stop  the  whole  concern.  There  was  nothing  to  do  in  such  cases  but  imitate 
Colonel  Scott's  coon  and  "come  down."  The  Culver  failure  in  May  of  1866 
compelled  the  First  National  Bank  to  press  its  claim  against  the  line,  which 
passed  into  the  hands  of  Jonathan  Watson.  J.  T.  Briggs  and  George  S.  Stew- 
art operated  it  for  the  bank  and  Watson  until  William  H.  Abbott  and  Henry 
Harley  purchased  the  entire  equipment. 

Reverses  beset  Van  Syckle,  who  induced  George  S.  and  Milton  Stewart  to 
erect  a  big  refinery  at  Titusville  to  test  his  pet  theory  of  "  continuous  distilla- 
tion." Failure,  tedious  litigation  and  heavy  loss  resulted.  Van  Syckle's  mind 
teemed  with  new  schemes  and  new  devices  for  refining.  He  possessed  the 
rare  faculty  of  finding  friends  willing  to  listen  to  his  plans  and  back  him  with 
cash.  Some  of  his  ideas  were  valuable  and  they  are  in  use,  to-day.  Misman- 
agement swamped  the  enterprises  he  created  and  Van  Syckle  finally  removed 
to  Buffalo,  where  his  checkered  life  closed  peacefully  on  March  second,  1894. 
While  often  unsuccessful  financially,  earnest  men  like  Samuel  Van  Syckle 
benefit  mankind.  The  oil-business  is  much  better  for  the  fertile  brain  and  per- 
severance of  the  man  whose  pipe-line  was  the  first  to  deliver  oil  to  a  railroad. 
His  example  stimulated  other  men  combining  keen  perception  and  executive 
ability,  who  could  sift  the  wheat  from  the  chaff  and  discard  the  useless  and 
impracticable. 

In  the  fall  of  1865  Henry  Harley  began  a  pipe-line  from  Benninghoff  Run 
to  Shaffer,  the  terminus  of  the  Oil-Creek  Railroad.  Teamsters  cut  the  pipes, 
burned  the  tanks  and  retarded  the  work  seriously.  An  armed  patrol  arrested 
twenty  of  the  ring-leaders,  dispersed  the  mob  and  quelled  the  riot.  The  line — 
two-inch  tubing  of  extra  weight — handled  oil  expeditiously,  a  pump  at  Ben- 
ninghoff forcing  six  to  eight-hundred  barrels  a  day  into  the  tanks  at  Shaffer. 
The  system  was  a  public  improvement,  personal  interest  had  to  yield  and 
four-hundred  teams  left  the  region  the  week  Harley's  line  pumped  its  first  oil. 
Abbott  and  Harley  owned  an  interest  in  the  Pithole  line  and  secured  control  by 
purchasing  Jonathan  Watson's  claim,  to  run  it  in  connection  with  the  Benning- 
hoff line.  They  organized  the  firm  of  Abbott  &  Harley  and  operated  both 
lines  several  months.  At  Miller  Farm  they  constructed  iron-tanks  and  loading- 
racks,  which  enabled  two  men  to  load  a  train  of  oil-cars  in  a  few  hours.  Avery 
&  Hedden  laid  a  line  from  Shamburg  to  Miller  Farm,  establishing  a  station  on 
the  highest  point  of  the  Tallman  farm  and  running  the  oil  to  the  railroad  by 
gravity.  Abbott  &  Harley  supplemented  this  with  a  branch  from  the  Pithole 
line  at  the  crossing  of  Cherry  Run.  Crude  was  a  good  price,  operators  pros- 


268 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE  OIL. 


pered  and  Miller  Farm  became  a  busy  place.  Railroads  extended  to  the 
region  and  pipe-lines  pumped  oil  directly  from  the  wells  to  the  cars  or  refineries. 
In  the  fall  of  1867  Abbott  &  Harley  acquired  control  of  the  Western  Trans- 
portation Company,  the  only  one  empowered  by  the  Legislature  to  pipe  oil  to 
railway-stations.  Under  its  charter  they  combined  the  Western  and  their  own 
two  lines  as  the  Allegheny  Transportation  Company.  The  first  board  of  direc- 
tors, elected  in  January  of  1869,  consisted  of  Henry  Harley,  president;  W.  H. 
Abbott,  secretary  :  Jay  Gould,  J.  P.  Harley  and  Joshua  Douglass.  T.  W.  Lar- 
sen  was  appointed  treasurer  and  William  Warmcastle— genial,  capable  "  Billy" 
Warmcastle -general  superintendent.  Jay  Gould  purchased  a  majority  of  the 
stock  in  1868  and  appointed  Mr.  Harley  general  oil-agent  of  the  Atlantic  & 


VV.    H     ABBOTT. 


HENRY   HAKLEY. 


Great  Western  and  Erie  Railroads.  In  1871  the  Commonwealth  Oil  and  Pipe 
Company  was  organized  in  the  interest  of  the  Oil-Creek  Railroad.  Harley 
contrived  to  effect  a  combination  and  reorganize  the  Allegheny  and  the  Com- 
monwealth as  the  Pennsylvania  Transportation  Company,  with  a  capital  of 
nearly  two-million  dollars  and  five-hundred  miles  of  pipes  to  Tidioute,  Triumph, 
Irvineton,  Oil  City,  Shamburg,  Pleasantville  and  Titusville,  centering  at  Miller 
Farm.  Among  the  stock-holders  were  Jay  Gould,  Thomas  A.  Scott,  William 
H.  Kemble,  Mrs.  James  Fisk  and  George  K.  Anderson.  The  new  enterprise 
absorbed  a  swarm  of  small  lines  and  was  considered  the  acme  of  pipe-line 
achievement. 

William  Hawkins  Abbott  was  a  Connecticut  boy,  an  Ohio  merchant  at 
twenty  five  and  a  visitor  to  the  Drake  well  in  February  of  1860.     He  remained 


FROM    THE    WELL    TO    THE  LAMP.  269 

two  days,  paid  ten-thousand  dollars  for  three  one-eighth  interests  in  farms  be- 
low the  town  and  two  days  after  William  Barnsdall  struck  a  fifty-barrel  well  on 
one  of  the  properties.  He  located  at  Titusville,  established  a  market  for  crude 
in  New  York,  shipped  extensively  and  in  the  fall  of  1860,  with  James  Parker 
and  William  Barnsdall  as  partners,  began  the  erection  of  the  first  complete 
refinery  in  the  oil-region.  To  convey  the  boilers  and  stills  from  Oil  City, 
whither  they  were  shipped  from  Pittsburg  by  water,  was  a  task  greater  than  the 
labors  of  Hercules.  The  first  car-load  of  coal  ever  seen  in  Titusville  Mr. 
Abbott  laid  down  in  the  fall  of  1862.  He  opened  a  coal-yard  and  superintended 
the  refinery.  Oil  fluctuated  at  a  rate  calculated  to  make  refiners  bald-headed. 
In  January  of  1 86 1  Abbott  paid  ten  dollars  a  barrel  for  crude  and  one-twenty- 
five  in  March.  In  October  of  1862  Howe  &  Nyce  stored  five-hundred  barrels 
of  crude  on  the  first  railroad-platform  at  Titusville,  selling  it  to  Abbott  at  two- 
sixty  a  barrel,  packages  included.  In  January  of  1863  Abbott  sold  the  oil  from 
the  same  platform  for  fourteen  dollars  and  in  March  the  same  lot— it  had  never 
been  moved  -brought  eight  dollars.  Thirty  days  later  Abbott  bought  it  again 
at  three  dollars  a  barrel  and  refined  it.  He  was  interested  in  the  Noble  well, 
bought  a  large  share  in  the  Pithole  and  Miller  Farm  Pipe-Line  and  in  1866 
formed  a  partnership  with  Henry  Harley.  He  contributed  largely  to  the  Titus- 
ville and  Pithole  plank-road  and  all  local  enterprises  likely  to  benefit  the  com- 
munity. His  generosity  was  comprehensive  and  discerning.  He  donated  a 
chapel  to  the  Episcopal  congregation,  projected  the  Union  &  Titusville  Rail- 
road and  was  a  most  exemplary,  public  spirited  citizen.  To  give  bountifully 
was  his  delight.  He  bore  financial  disaster  heroically  and  labored  incessantly 
to  save  others  from  loss.  At  seventy-two  he  is  patient  and  helpful  to  those 
about  him,  his  daily  life  illustrating  his  real  worth  and  illumining  the  pathway 
of  his  declining  years. 

Born  in  Ohio  in  1839  and  graduated  from  the  Rensselaer  Polytechnic  Insti- 
tute as  a  civil-engineer  in  1858,  Henry  Harley  supervised  the  construction  of  the 
Hoosac  Tunnel  until  the  war  and  settled  at  Pittsburg  in  1862  as  active  partner 
of  Richardson,  Harley  &  Co.  The  firm  had  a  large  petroleum  commission- 
house  and  Harley  removed  to  Philadelphia  in  1863  to  manage  its  principal 
branch.  He  purchased  large  tracts  in  West  Virginia  which  did  not  meet  his 
expectations,  withdrew  from  the  commission-firm  and  in  the  latter  part  of  1865 
built  his  first  pipe-line.  He  was  the  confidential  friend  of  Jay  Gould  and  James 
Fisk,  whose  support  placed  him  in  a  position  to  organize  the  Pennsylvania 
Transportation  Company.  For  years  Harley  swam  on  the  topmost  wave  and 
was  a  high-roller  of  the  loftiest  stripe.  Henry  Villard  was  not  more  magnetic. 
He  told  good  stories,  dealt  out  good  cigars,  knew  champagne  from  seltzer  and 
had  no  trace  of  the  miser  in  his  intercourse  with  the  world.  He  lived  at  Titus- 
ville in  regal  style  and  made  "the  grand  tour  of  Europe "  in  1872.  He  was  on 
intimate  terms  with  railroad  magnates,  big  politicians  and  Napoleons  of  finance. 
The  Pipe-Line  Company  got  into  deep  waters,  prosecutions  and  legal  entangle- 
ments crippled  it  and  Henry  Harley  tumbled  with  the  fabric  his  genius  had 
reared.  He  drifted  to  New  York,  was  a  familiar  figure  around  Chautauqua 
several  seasons  and  died  in  1892.  His  widow  lives  in  New  York  and  his 
brother  George,  a  popular  member  of  the  Oil-City  Oil-Exchange,  died  last  year. 

In  November  of  1865  the  Oil  City  &  Pithole  Railroad  Company  began  a 
railroad  between  the  two  towns,  pushing  the  work  with  such  energy  that  the 
first  train  from  Pithole  to  Oil  City  was  run  on  March  tenth,  1866.  Vandergrift 
&  Forman  equipped  the  Star  Tank-Line  to  carry  oil  in  tank-cars  and  laid  the 


27o  SKETCHES  IX  CRUDE   OIL. 

Star  Pipe-Line  from  West  Pithole  to  Pithole  to  connect  with  the  railroad.  An 
unequivocal  success  from  the  start,  this  pipe-line  has  been  regarded  as  the  real 
beginning  of  the  present  system  of  oil-transportation.  The  lower  oil-country 
enlarged  the  field  for  pipe-line  stations.  Lines  multiplied  in  Venango,  Clarion, 
Armstrong  and  Butler.  Some  of  these  were  controlled  by  Vandergrift  &  For- 
man,  who  brought  the  business  to  a  high  standard  of  perfection.  Each  district 
had  one  or  more  lines  running  to  the  nearest  railroad.  The  Pennsylvania 
Transportation  Company  secured  a  charter  in  1875  to  construct  a  line  to  the 
seaboard.  Nothing  was  done  except  to  build  more  lines  in  the  oil-region.  The 
number  grew  continually.  Clarion  had  a  half-dozen,  the  Antwerp  heading  the 
list.  Parker  had  a  brood  of  small-fry  and  Butler  was  net-worked.  It  was  the 
fashion  to  talk  of  trunk-lines,  call  public  meetings,  subscribe  for  stock  and — let 
the  project  die.  Dr.  Hostetter,  the  Pittsburg  millionaire  of  "Bitters"  fame, 
built  the  Conduit  Line  from  Millerstown  to  the  city  of  smoke  and  soot.  The 
Karns,  the  Relief  and  others  ran  to  Harrisville.  Every  fellow  wanted  a  finger 
in  the  pipe-line  pot-pie.  A  war  of  competition  arose,  rates  were  cut,  business 
was  done  at  heavy  loss  and  the  weaker  concerns  went  to  the  wall.  The  com- 
panies issued  certificates  or  receipts,  instead  of  paying  cash  for  crude  received 
by  their  lines.  When  the  producer  ran  oil  into  the  storage-tanks  of  some  com- 
panies he  was  not  certain  the  certificates  given  him  in  return  would  have  any 
value  next  day.  He  must  either  use  the  lines  or  leave  the  oil  in  the  ground. 
The  necessity  of  combining  the  badly-managed  competitive  companies  into  a 
solid  organization  was  urgent.  The  Union  Pipe-Line  Company  acquired  a 
number  of  lines  and  operated  its  system  in  connection  with  the  Empire  Line. 
Under  the  act  of  1874  Vandergrift  &  Forman  organized  the  United  Pipe-Lines, 
into  which  numerous  local  lines  were  merged.  The  first  grand  step  had  been 
taken  in  the  direction  of  settling  the  question  of  oil-transportation  for  all  time. 

The  advantages  of  the  consolidation  quickly  commended  the  new  order  of 
things  to  the  public.  The  United  Lines  erected  hundreds  of  iron-tanks  for 
storage  and  connected  with  every  producing-well.  Needless  pipes  and  pumps 
and  stations  were  removed  to  be  utilized  as  required.  The  best  appliances 
were  adopted,  improving  the  service  and  diminishing  its  cost.  Uniform  rates 
were  established  and  every  detail  was  systematized.  Captain  Vandergrift, 
president  of  the  United  Lines,  was  ably  assisted  in  each  department.  Daniel 
O'Day,  a  potent  force  in  pipe-line  affairs,  developed  the  system  to  an  exact 
science.  He  learned  the  shipping-business  from  the  very  rudiments  in  the  great 
Empire  Line.  His  thorough  knowledge,  industry  and  practical  talent  were  of 
incalculable  value  to  the  United  Lines.  He  possessed  in  full  measure  the  quali- 
ties adapted  especially  to  the  expansion  and  improvement  of  the  giant  enter- 
prise. He  had  the  skill  to  plan  wisely  and  the  ability  to  execute  promptly. 
His  sagacity  and  experience  foresaw  the  magnificent  future  of  the  system  and 
he  laid  the  foundations  of  the  United  Lines  broad  and  deep.  To-day  Daniel 
O'Day  is  a  master-spirit  of  the  pipe-line  world,  a  millionaire  and  vice-president 
of  the  National  Transit  Company,  which  transports  nine-tenths  of  the  oil  pro- 
duced in  the  United  States.  He  has  risen  by  personal  desert,  without  favorit- 
ism or  partiality.  His  elevation  has  not  subtracted  one  whit  from  the  manly 
character  that  gained  him  innumerable  friends  in  the  oil-region. 

Edward  Hopkins,  first  manager  of  the  United  Pipe-Lines,  was  an  efficient 
officer  and  died  young.  John  R.  Campbell  has  been  treasurer  from  the  incor- 
poration of  the  lines  in  1877.  Born  in  Massachusetts  and  graduated  from  Rev. 
Samuel  Aaron's  celebrated  school  at  Norristown,  he  served  his  apprenticeship 


FROM  THE    WELL  TO  THE  LAMP. 


271 


in  the  Baldwin  Locomotive  Works  and  manufactured  printing-inks  in  Phila- 
delphia, with  William  L.  and  Charles  H.  Lay  as  partners.  In  March  of  ^865 
he  visited  the  oil-region  and  in  August  removed  to  Oil  City.  He  acquired  oil- 
interests,  published  the  Register  and  was  treasurer  for  the  receiver  of  the  Oil 
City  &  Pithole  Railroad  Company.  In  1867  he  became  book-keeper  for  Van- 
dergrift  &  Lay,  afterwards  for  Captain  Vandergrift  and  later  for  Vandergrift  & 
Forman,  who  appointed  him  treasurer  of  their  pipe- lines  in  1868.  He  retained 
the  position  in  the  United  Lines  and  he  is  still  treasurer  of  that  division  of  the 
National  Transit  Company.  To  Mr.  Campbell  is  largely  due  the  accurate  and 
comprehensive  system  of  pipe-line  accounts  now  universally  adopted.  He 
aided  in  devising  negotiable  oil-certificates,  reliable  as  government  bonds  and 


convertible  into  cash  at  any  moment.  He  enjoys  to  the  fullest  extent  the  con- 
fidence and  esteem  of  his  associates  and  is  treasurer  of  a  dozen  large  corpora- 
tions. He  was  president  term  after  term  of  the  Ivy  Club,  one  of  the  finest 
social  organizations  in  Pennsylvania,  and  a  liberal  promoter  of  important  enter- 
prises. His  abiding  faith  in  Oil  City  he  manifests  by  investing  in  manufactures 
and  furthering  public  improvements.  Active,  helpful  and  popular  in  business, 
in  society  and  in  the  church,  no  eulogy  could  add  to  the  high  estimation  in 
which  John  R.  Campbell  is  held  wherever  known. 

The  enormous  production  of  the  Bradford  field,  the  increased  distances  and 
the  construction  of  lines  to  the  sea  presented  new  and  difficult  problems.  A 
natural  increase  in  size  led  to  a  demand  for  pipe  of  better  quality,  for  heavier 
fittings  and  improved  machinery.  The  largest  line  prior  to  Bradford's  advent 
was  a  four-inch  pipe  from  the  Butler  field  to  Pittsburg,  in  1875.  Excepting  this 


272  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

and  three-inch  lines  to  Raymilton  and  Oil  City,  none  of  the  main  lines  exceeded 
twelve  miles  in  length.  Many  were  gravity-lines  and  others  used  small  tubing 
and  light  pumps.  The  greater  quantities  and  longer  distances  in  the  northern 
district — the  oil  also  congealed  at  a  higher  temperature  and  was  harder  to 
handle  than  the  product  of  the  lower  fields — required  greater  power,  larger 
pipes  and  increased  facilities.  The  first  six-inch  line  was  laid  from  Tarport  to 
Carrollton  in  the  spring  of  1879.  Two  four-inch  lines  had  preceded  it  and  a 
four-inch  line  from  Tarport  to  Kane  was  completed  the  same  season,  five  six- 
inch  lines  following  later.  The  first  long-distance  line,  a  five-inch  pipe  from 
Milliards — near  Petrolia — to  Cleveland,  was  completed  in  the  summer  of  1879. 
Trunk-lines  to  the  eastern  coast  were  begun  in  1879-80.  The  trunk-line  to 
Philadelphia  starts  at  Colegrove,  McKean  county,  and  extends  two-hundred- 
and- thirty-five  miles — six-inch  pipe — with  a  five-inch  branch  of  sixty-six  miles 
from  Millway  to  Baltimore.  Starting  at  Olean,  two  six-inch  lines  were  paralleled 
to  Saddle  River,  N.  J.  They  separated  there,  one  connecting  with  the  refineries 
at  Bayonne  and  the  other  going  under  the  North  and  East  Rivers  to  Hunter's 
Point,  on  Long  Island.  The  New- York  line  is  double  under  the  Hudson — one 
pipe  inside  another,  with  tight-fitting  sleeve-joints.  The  ends  of  the  jacket- 
pipe  were  separated  twelve  inches  to  permit  the  enclosed  pipe  to  be  screwed 
home.  The  sleeve  was  then  pushed  over  the  gap  and  the  space  between  the 
pipes  filled  with  melted  lead.  The  line  is  held  in  place  by  two  sets  of  heavy 
chains,  parallel  with  and  about  twenty  feet  from  the  pipe,  one  on  each  side. 
At  intervals  of  three-hundred  feet  a  guide-chain  connects  the  pipe  with  the 
lateral  chains  and  beyond  each  of  these  connections  an  anchor,  weighing  over 
a  ton,  keeps  the  whole  in  place.  The  completion  of  this  part  of  the  line  was 
an  engineering  triumph  not  much  inferior  to  the  laying  of  Cyrus  W.  Field's 
Atlantic  Cable. 

The  United  Pipe-Lines  Association  moved  forward  steadily,  avoiding  the 
pitfalls  that  had  wrecked  other  systems.  It  bought  or  combined  the  Oil-City, 
Antwerp,  Union,  Karns,  Grant,  Conduit,  Relief,  Pennsylvania,  Clarion  and 
McKean  divisions  of  the  American-Transfer,  Prentice,  Olean,  Union  Oil-Com- 
pany's at  Clarendon,  McCalmont  at  Cherry  Grove  and  smaller  lines,  covering 
the  oil-region  from  Allegany  to  Butler.  The  United  owned  three-thousand 
miles  of  lines,  thirty-five-million  barrels  of  iron-tankage  and  one-hundred  and- 
eighteen  local  pump-stations.  Even  these  extraordinary  resources  were  strained 
by  the  overflowing  demand.  Bradford  was  the  Oliver  Twist  of  the  region, 
continually  crying  for  "More  !"  Ohio  and  West  Virginia  entered  the  race  and 
required  facilities  for  handling  an  amazing  amount  of  oil.  To  meet  any  con- 
tingency and  secure  the  advantages  of  consolidation  in  the  states  producing 
oil  the  National-Transit  Company  increased  its  capital  to  thirty-two-million 
dollars.  The  company  held  the  original  charter  granted  to  the  Pennsylvania 
Company  under  the  act  of  1870.  In  1880  it  absorbed  the  American-Transfer 
Company,  an  extensive  concern.  On  April  first,  1884,  it  acquired  the  plant 
and  business  of  the  United  Lines,  thus  ranking  with  the  most  powerful  corpo- 
rations in  the  land. 

Men  entirely  familiar  with  the  minutest  details  of  oil-transportation  and 
storage  guided  the  National  Transit.  Captain  Vandergrift  was  influential  in 
the  management  until  his  retirement  from  active  duty  in  1892.  President  C.  A. 
Griscom  was  succeeded  by  Benjamin  Brewster  and  he  by  H.  H.  Rogers,  the 
present  official  head  of  the  company.  John  Bushnell  was  secretary.  Daniel 
O'Day  general  manager,  and  James  R.  Snow  general  superintendent.  Skill- 


FROM   THE    WELL    TO    THE  LAMP.  273 

ful,  practical  and  keenly  alive  to  the  necessities  of  the  oil-region,  they  were 
not  kid-gloved  idlers  whose  chief  aim  was  to  draw  fat  salaries.  Mr.  Rogers 
made  his  mark  on  Oil  Creek  in  pioneer  times  as  a  forceful,  intelligent,  progres- 
sive business-man.  He  had  brains,  earnestness,  integrity  and  industry  and 
rose  by  positive  merit  to  the  presidency  of  the  greatest  transportation-com- 
pany of  the  age.  He  is  a  first-class  citizen,  a  liberal  patron  of  education  and 
an  apostle  of  good  roads.  He  endows  schools  and  colleges,  abounds  in  kindly 
deeds  and  does  not  forget  his  experiences  in  Oildom.  Daniel  O'Day — clever 
and  capable,  "whom  not  to  know  is  to  argue  one's  self  unknown  "—who  has 
not  heard  of  the  plucky,  invincible  vice-president  of  the  National  Transit 
Company  ?  Everybody  admires  the  genial,  resolute  son  of  Erin  whose  clear 
head,  willing  hands,  strong  individuality  and  sterling  qualities  have  raised  him 
to  a  position  Grover  Cleveland  might  covet.  James  R.  Snow  invented  a  pump 
so  perfect  that  oil  would  fairly  flow  up  hill  for  a  chance  to  pass  through  the 
machine.  From  their  Broadway  offices  Rogers,  O'Day  and  Snow  direct  by  tele- 
phone and  telegraph  the  movements  of  regiments  of  employes  in  Pennsylvania, 
Ohio,  West  Virginia  and  Indiana.  They  are  in  direct  communication  with 
every  office  of  the  company,  every  purchasing-agency,  every  pump-station  on 
the  trunk-lines  and  every  oil-producing  section  of  four  states.  No  army  Napo- 
leon, Wellington  or  Grant  commanded  was  better  officered,  better  disciplined, 
better  equipped  and  better  managed  than  the  grand  army  of  National-Transit 
pipe-men.  If  "poets  are  born,  not  made,"  what  shall  be  said  of  the  wide- 
awake solvers  of  the  problem  of  rapid  transit  for  oil — the  pipe-liners  who,  com- 
bining the  maximum  of  efficiency  with  the  minimum  of  cost,  have  placed  a 
great  staple  within  reach  of  the  lowliest  dwellers  beneath  the  Stars  and  Stripes? 
Candidly,  is  "the  best  in  the  shop"  too  good  for  them? 

No  man  has  contributed  more  to  the  development  of  the  oil-industry,  alike 
as  a  producer,  refiner  and  transporter,  than  Captain  J.  J.  Vandergrift.  His 
active  connection  with  petroleum  goes  back  to  pioneer  operations,  widening 
and  expanding  constantly.  By  his  energy,  perseverance,  uprightness  and  mas- 
terly traits  of  character  he  attained  prominence  in  all  branches  of  the  oil-busi- 
ness. His  wonderful  success  was  not  due  to  any  caprice  of  fortune,  but  to  sta- 
bility of  purpose,  patient  application  and  honorable  methods.  Vigor  and  deci- 
sion supplemented  the  keen  foresight  that  discovered  the  amazing  possibilities 
of  petroleum  as  an  article  of  universal  utility.  He  believed  in  the  future  of  oil 
and  shaped  his  course  in  accordance  with  the  broadest  ideas.  Allied  with 
George  V.  Forman,  clear-headed,  quick  to  plan  and  execute,  the  firm  took  a 
leading  part  in  producing  and  carrying  oil.  Vandergrift  &  Forman  constructed 
the  Star  Pipe-Line  and  equipped  trains  of  tank-cars  to  convey  crude  from  Pit- 
hole  to  Oil  City.  They  drilled  hosts  of  wells  in  Butler  county  and  built  the  Fair- 
view  Pipe-Line,  which  finally  crystallized  with  numerous  others  into  the  United 
Pipe-Lines  Association  and  the  gigantic  National-Transit  Company.  The  firm 
of  H.  L.  Taylor  &  Co.,  of  which  they  were  members,  originated  the  Union  Oil- 
Company.  Vandergrift  &  Forman,  Vandergrift,  Pitcairn  &  Co.  and  Vander- 
grift, Young  &  Co.  consolidated  as  the  Forest  Oil-Company,  which  holds  the 
foremost  place  in  the  production  of  oil.  Mr.  Forman  operated  in  Allegany  and 
McKean,  developing  large  tracts  of  territory  on  the  Bingham  and  Barse  lands. 
He  resided  at  Olean  and  established  the  finest  stock-farm  in  the  Empire  State. 
Removing  to  Buffalo  to  engage  in  banking,  he  organized  the  Fidelity  Trust- 
Company  and  erected  for  its  use  a  palatial  structure  in  the  heart  of  the  city. 
Under  his  presidency  the  Fidelity  is  a  power  in  the  world  of  finance.  Shrewd, 


274 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE   OIL. 


prompt  and  far-seeing,  George  V.  Forman  is  richly  dowered  with  the  qualities 
of  business-leadership.  His  influence  in  the  oil-country  was  not  limited  to  one 
corner  or  district  or  locality.  He  has  enjoyed  the  pleasure  of  making  money 
and  the  greater  pleasure  of  giving  liberally.  He  is  "a  man  who  thinks  it  out, 
then  goes  and  does  it." 

Born  at  Pittsburg  in  1827,  at  fifteen  Jacob  Jay  Vandergrift  chose  the  path- 
way that  naturally  opened  before  him  and  entered  the  steamboat-service,  then 


..• — -N-          ^  •/~7<"V^' 

V  I       *        : 


the  chief  medium  of  intercommunication  between  his  native  city  and  the  west. 
In  ten  years  he  rose  from  cabin-boy  to  captain.  He  introduced  the  method  of 
towing  coal-barges  that  has  since  been  employed  in  the  river-traffic.  The 
innovation  attracted  wide  attention  and  gave  a  great  impetus  to  mining  in  the 
Pittsburg  coal-fields.  Captain  Vandergrift  was  steamboating  on  the  Ohio 
when  the  war  broke  out  and  owned  the  staunch  Red  Fox,  which  the  govern- 
ment chartered  and  lost  near  Cairo.  He  transported  oil  down  the  Allegheny, 


FROM   THE   WELL    TO    THE  LAMP.  275 

was  concerned  in  West- Virginia  wells — the  Confederates  destroyed  them — and 
removed  to  Oil  City  in  1863  to  oversee  his  shipping-business,  with  Daniel  Bush- 
nell  as  his  first  partner  in  producing  oil.  He  organized  the  firms  out  of  which 
grew  the  Union,  the  Forest,  the  Washington  Oil-Company  and  the  United  Oil 
and  Gas  Trust.  He  was  president  of  the  Forest  and  the  Washington  and  a 
leading  promoter  of  the  Anchor  Oil-Company.  The  success  of  these  great 
companies  was  owing  largely  to  his  peculiar  ability  as  an  organizer  and  man- 
ager of  important  enterprises.  Other  individuals  and  corporations  produced 
oil  profitably,  but  to  Vandergrift  &  Forman  the  marvelous  advance  in  modes 
of  transportation  is  mainly  attributable.  They  piped  and  railroaded  oil  from 
Pithole,  extended  their  lines  through  the  different  fields,  devised  many  im- 
provements, perfected  the  methods  of  handling  the  product  and  developed  the 
system  that  has  eliminated  jaded  horses,  wooden-barrels,  mud-scows,  slow 
freights  and  the  thousand  inconveniences  of  early  transportation.  Captain 
Vandergrift's  sturdy  integrity  and  wise  forethought  planned  the  open,  clear-cut 
manner  in  which  his  pipe-lines  conducted  business.  Throughout  their  entire 
existence  he  was  president  of  the  United  Pipe-Lines  and  of  the  United  Division 
of  the  National-Transit  after  the  consolidation  in  1884.  Their  splendid  record 
is  an  unqualified  tribute  to  his  business-skill  and  rare  sagacity.  He  found  the 
region  hampered  by  an  expensive,  tedious  method  of  moving  oil  and  left  it  a 
transportation-system  that  serves  the  industry  as  no  other  on  earth  is  served. 
He  substituted  the  steam-pump  for  the  wearied  mule,  the  iron-artery  for  the 
roads  of  bottomless  mire  and  the  huge  cistern  of  boiler-plate  for  the  portable 
tank  of  wooden  staves  that  leaked  at  every  pore.  To  Oil  City  he  was  a  munifi- 
cent benefactor.  He  projected  the  Imperial  Refinery,  with  a  capacity  of  fifteen- 
thousand  barrels  a  week,  by  the  sale  of  which  he  became  a  stockholder  and 
officer  of  the  Standard  Oil-Company.  He  aided  in  establishing  the  Boiler- 
Works,  the  Barrel-Works,  river-bridges,  manufactories,  churches  and  public 
improvements.  He  paid  his  workmen  the  highest  wages,  befriended  the  hum- 
ble toiler  and  assisted  every  worthy  object.  The  poor  blessed  his  beneficent 
hand  and  all  classes  revered  the  modest  citizen  whose  unostentatious  deeds  of 
kindness  no  party,  race,  color  or  creed  could  for  one  moment  restrict. 

Very  naturally,  one  thus  interested  in  a  special  product  and  its  industries 
must  be  identified  with  its  finance.  Captain  Vandergrift  founded  the  Oil-City 
Trust-Company,  one  of  the  leading  banking  institutions  of  the  state,  and  was 
prominent  in  organizing  the  Oil-Exchange,  the  Seaboard-National  Bank  of 
New  York  and  the  Argyle  Savings-Bank  at  Petrolia.  Removing  to  Pittsburg 
in  1881,  he  founded  the  Keystone  Bank  and  the  Pittsburg  Trust-Company — 
nine-hundred-thousand  dollars  paid-up  capital  and  four-millions  deposits — and 
was  unanimously  elected  president  of  both.  He  provided  spacious  quarters 
for  the  Oil-Exchange  and  established  it  on  a  sound  basis.  He  erected  the  mas- 
sive Vandergrift  Building  on  Fourth  avenue,  in  which  the  National-Transit 
Company,  the  Forest,  the  South-Penn,  the  Pennsylvania,  the  Woodland  and 
other  oil-companies  are  commodiously  housed.  The  owner  occupies  a  suite 
of  offices  on  the  second  floor  and  the  Pittsburg  Trust-Company  has  its  bank  on 
the  ground  floor  of  the  granite  structure.  He  also  erected  the  Conestoga 
Building,  which  has  seven-hundred  elegant  offices,  and  the  Imperial  Power- 
Building,  with  factory-construction  and  the  latest  electric-motors  throughout. 
In  1882  he  organized  the  Pennsylvania  Tube- Works —eight-hundred-thousand 
dollars  capital— to  manufacture  all  kinds  of  wrought-iron  pipe.  The  output 
was  so  excellent  that  the  capital  was  increased  to  two-millions  and  the  plant 


276  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE  OIL. 

doubled.  The  works  turn  out  pipe  from  one-eighth  inch  to  twenty-eight  inches, 
the  smallest  and  largest  sizes  in  the  world.  The  Apollo  Steel-Company,  which 
he  also  capitalized  in  1885  at  three-hundred-thousand  dollars,  has  likewise 
trebled  its  plant  and  enlarged  its  capital  to  two-millions.  The  Penn  Fuel- 
Company,  the  Bridgewater  Gas  Company,  the  Natural-Gas  Company  of  West 
Virginia,  the  Chartiers  Natural-Gas  Company,  the  United  Oil  and  Gas  Trust, 
the  Toledo  Natural-Gas  Company,  the  Fort-Pitt  Natural-Gas  Company  and  a 
number  more  were  incorporated  by  Captain  Vandergrift.  They  represent 
many  millions  of  capital  and  have  performed  inestimable  service  in  develop- 
ing the  fuel  that  proved  a  veritable  philosopher's  stone  to  the  iron-industries 
of  Western-Pennsylvania.  As  in  petroleum,  from  the  days  of  spring-poles  and 
bulk-barges  and  pond-freshets  down  through  all  the  changes  of  the  most  re- 
markable industrial  development  the  world  has  ever  seen,  so  Captain  Vander- 
grift has  been  a  pioneer,  a  guide  and  a  leader  in  natural-gas.  His  hand  has 
never  been  off  the  helm,  nor  has  he  ever  grudged  an  atom  of  the  energy  be- 
stowed upon  the  cherished  pursuits  of  his  busy  life. 

Forty  miles  north-east  of  Pittsburg,  on  a  beautiful  bend  of  the  Kiskiminetas 
River,  the  new  town  of  Vandergrift  has  been  laid  out,  under  the  direction  of 
Frederick  Law  Olmsted.  It  is  located  on  a  plot  one  mile  square,  two  miles 
below  Apollo,  the  gentle  slope  overlooking  the  valley  and  the  river  for  leagues. 
Its  residents  will  have  within  easy  reach  of  simple  thrift  what  luxurious  people 
enjoy  in  large  cities  at  great  expense.  They  will  have  clean  air  and  water  and 
breathing-room,  green  leaves  and  flowers  and  grass,  paved  streets  and  sewers 
and  electricity,  parks  and  walks  and  drives,  shade-trees  and  lawns  and  pleasant 
homes,  for  Vandergrift  will  be  the  model  town  of  Pennsylvania.  The  company 
is  paying  sixty-thousand  dollars  a  month  at  Apollo  in  wages  and  the  big  works 
at  Vandergrift  will  employ  thrice  as  many  men.  At  first  the  bulk  of  the  town 
will  be  the  habitations  of  those  employed  by  and  associated  with  the  company. 
After  a  little  others  will  note  its  advantages  and  desire  to  share  them.  Pro- 
vision will  be  made  this  year  for  an  immediate  population  of  several  thousand, 
with  the  means  of  living  comfortably,  families  owning  their  homes  and  con- 
trolling their  own  pursuits.  The  town  is  not  to  be  a  fad,  a  hobby,  or  a  vision- 
ary Utopia,  but  a  good  place  for  men  to  live  in,  for  the  founder  to  use  his 
money,  for  the  world  to  look  at  and  learn  from.  These  banks  and  business- 
blocks,  pipe-lines  and  refineries,  mills  and  factories  and  the  town  that  bears  his 
name  are  enduring  monuments  to  the  enterprise  and  wisdom  of  a  man  who 
recognizes  the  responsibilities  of  wealth  in  his  investments,  in  his  works  of 
philanthropy  and  in  his  gifts  to  the  children  of  misfortune. 

Captain  Vandergrift' s  home  in  Allegheny  City  is  a  center  of  good  cheer 
and  genial  hospitality.  The  host  is  the  same  kindly,  companionable  gentleman 
by  his  own  hearth,  in  his  office  or  on  the  street.  He  casts  the  lead  of  memory 
into  the  stream  of  the  past  and  talks  entertainingly  of  the  old  days  on  the  Ohio, 
the  Allegheny  and  Oil  Creek.  He  is  never  too  much  engaged  to  welcome  a 
comrade  of  his  early  years.  He  has  not  lost  touch  with  men  or  the  spirit  of 
sympathy  with  the  struggling  and  unsuccessful.  His  trials  and  vicissitudes, 
equally  with  his  triumphs  and  successes,  have  strengthened  his  moral  fiber,  his 
manly  courage  and  his  nobility  of  character.  Doubtful  plans  and  purposes 
have  had  no  place  in  his  policy.  Strict  honesty  and  fairness  have  governed  his 
conduct  and  respected  the  rights  and  privileges  of  his  fellows.  He  has  been 
quick  to  discover  and  reward  talent,  to  grasp  the  details  and  possibilities  of 
business  and  to  mature  plans  for  any  emergency.  Money  has  not  shriveled  his 


FROM   THE    WELL    TO    THE  LAMP.  277 

soul  and  narrowed  him  to  the  prayer  of  selfishness:  "Give  me  this  day  my 
daily  bread."  He  prefers  straightforwardness  to  a  pedigree  running  back  to 
the  Mayflower.  He  realizes  that  golden  opportunities  for  good  are  not  travel- 
ing by  a  time-table  and  that  men  will  not  journey  this  way  again  to  repair 
omissions  and  rectify  mistakes.  He  knows  that  he  who  does  right  will  be  right 
and  feel  right.  He  does  not  lay  aside  his  sense  of  justice,  his  love  of  fair-play, 
his  earnest  convictions  and  his  desire  to  benefit  mankind  with  his  Sunday 
clothes.  He  believes  that  principle  which  is  not  exercised  every  day  will  not 
keep  sweet  a  week.  The  story  of  J.  J.  Vandergrift's  life  and  labor  is  told 
wherever  the  flame  of  natural-gas  glows  in  the  white  heat  of  a  furnace  or  the 
gleam  of  an  oil-lamp  brightens  a  happy  home. 

Somehow  we  all  feel  sure,  boys,  that  when  the  game  is  o'er — 
When  the  last  inning's  play'd,  boys,  this  side  the  other  shore— 
We'll  hear  the  Umpire  say  bo>s  :  "  The  Captain's  made  a  score." 

Few  persons  have  any  conception  of  the  labor  and  capital  involved  in  stor- 
ing and  transporting  petroleum.  Only  those  familiar  with  the  early  methods 
can  appreciate  fully  the  convenience  and  economy  of  the  pipe-line  system.  It 
puts  the  producer  in  direct  communication  with  the  carrier  and  a  market  at  all 
seasons,  regardless  of  high  or  low  water,  rain  or  storm,  mud  or  dust.  The 
tanks  at  his  wells  are  connected  with  the  pipe-line  by  one  or  more  of  the  two- 
inch  feeders  that  spider-web  the  producing-country.  Small  pumps  force  the 
crude,  when  the  location  of  the  well  prevents  running  it  by  gravity,  from  these 
tanks  into  a  receiving-tank  of  the  line,  whence  it  can  be  piped  into  the  trunk- 
lines  or  a  storage-tank  as  desired.  The  producer  who  wishes  his  oil  run  noti- 
fies the  nearest  office  or  agent  of  the  company —usually  this  requires  about  two 
minutes  by  wire— a  gauger  measures  the  feet  and  inches  of  fluid  in  the  tank, 
opens  the  stop-cock,  turns  the  stream  into  the  line  and,  presto,  change !  the 
job  is  done.  The  gauger  measures  the  oil  left  at  the  bottom  of  the  tank,  gives 
the  producer  a  receipt  for  the  difference  between  the  two  gauges  and  reports 
the  result  to  the  central  station  of  that  section  of  the  field.  There  tables  of 
the  measurements  of  every  tank  in  the  locality  are  at  hand,  properly  labeled 
and  numbered.  The  right  table  shows  at  a  glance  the  amount  of  oil  in  barrels 
corresponding  to  the  feet  and  inches  the  gauger  reports  having  run  and  the 
producer  is  credited  accordingly,  just  like  a  depositor  in  a  bank.  These  reports 
are  summed  up  at  a  certain  hour  and  the  company  learns  precisely  how  much 
oil  has  been  received  each  day.  By  a  similar  process  the  shipments  are  re- 
corded and  the  exact  quantity  in  the  custody  of  the  company  is  known  at  the 
close  of  the  day's  business.  Runs  and  shipments  are  published  daily  and  a 
monthly  synopsis  is  posted,  in  compliance  with  the  laws  of  Pennsylvania.  The 
producer  can  leave  his  oil  in  the  line,  subject  to  a  slight  charge  for  storage  after 
thirty  days,  or  sell  it  immediately.  He  can  take  certificates  or  acceptances  of 
one  thousand  barrels  each,  payable  on  demand  in  crude-oil  at  any  shipping- 
point  in  the  oil-region.  These  certificates,  good  as  gold  and  negotiable  as  certi- 
fied checks,  the  holder  can  use  as  collateral  to  borrow  money,  sell  at  sight  or 
stow  away  if  he  looks  for  an  advance  in  prices.  It  is  not  Hobson's  choice  with 
him.  In  an  hour  from  the  time  of  notifying  the  office  his  oil  may  be  run,  the 
amount  figured  up,  the  sale  made  and  the  currency  in  the  owner's  pocket.  He 
has  not  tugged  and  perspired  loading  it  in  wagons  or  on  cars,  worn  out  his 
patience  and  his  team  and  his  profanity  driving  it  through  an  ocean  of  mud,  or 
risked  the  chances  of  a  jam  and  a  wreck  ferrying  it  on  the  bosom  of  a  pond- 
freshet.  Nor  has  he  put  up  one  penny  for  the  service  of  the  pipe- line,  which 


278  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE  OIL. 

collects  twenty  cents  a  barrel  when  the  oil  is  delivered  to  the  purchaser.  The 
company  is  not  a  holder  of  oil  on  its  own  account,  except  what  it  necessarily 
keeps  to  offset  evaporation  and  sediment,  acting  merely  as  a  common-carrier 
between  the  producer  and  the  refiner.  The  system  is  the  perfection  of  sim- 
plicity, accuracy  and  cheapness. 

Pipe-lines  are  the  natural  outgrowth  of  the  petroleum-business,  which 
could  no  more  get  along  without  them  than  could  the  commerce  of  the  world 
without  railroads  and  steamships.  The  movement  of  a  thousand  barrels  of 
crude  in  early  times  was  a  task  of  great  magnitude,  costly,  time-consuming  and 
perplexing.  Sometimes  barrels  were  not  to  be  had,  the  water  was  too  shallow 
for  boating  or  the  mud  too  deep  for  teaming.  Often  a  big  well  wasted  half  its 
product  and  gorged  transportation,  harassing  the  soul  and  depleting  the  purse 
of  the  luckless  owner.  Fancy  attempting  to  handle  a  hundred-thousand  bar- 
rels a  day  with  the  primitive  appliances  !  Whew  !  You  might  as  well  try  to 
cart  off  Niagara  in  kegs.  Butler  and  McKean  rushed  wells  by  the  hundred 
every  week,  swelling  the  production  extravagantly.  The  supply  was  enor- 
mously in  excess  of  the  demand.  Operators  wouldn't  stop  drilling  and  the 
surplus  oil  had  to  be  cared  for  in  some  way.  The  United  Lines  and  the  Na- 
tional-Transit Company  spent  millions  of  dollars  to  provide  adequate  facilities. 
Not  only  was  the  vast  output  to  be  taken  from  the  wells,  but  a  large  percentage 
must  be  stored.  To  pipe  a  hundred-and-forty-thousand  barrels  a  day  was  a 
grand  achievement,  even  without  the  burden  of  husbanding  much  of  the  stuff 
for  weeks,  months  and  years.  A  wilderness  of  iron-tanks — thirty  to  forty  thou- 
sand barrels  each — went  up  at  Olean,  Oil  City,  Raymilton,  Parker  and  distrib- 
uting points.  Stocks  increased  and  tanks  multiplied  until  forty-million  barrels 
were  piled  up  !  Think  of  the  mountains  of  pipe,  the  acres  of  iron-plates,  the 
legions  of  workmen  and  the  stacks  of  cash  all  this  required.  Six  pipes  were 
laid  to  New  York  and  the  Tidewater  Company  built  a  six-inch  line  to  New  Jer- 
sey. The  trunk-lines  of  the  National-Transit  alone  are  five-thousand  miles  in 
length,  besides  which  the  Tidewater  and  the  United-States  pipe  oil  eastward. 
Fifty-thousand  barrels  of  crude  a  day  flow  through  these  underground  arteries 
to  the  refineries  at  Hunter's  Point,  Bayonne  and  Philadelphia.  Other  thou- 
sands are  piped  to  Baltimore,  Buffalo,  Cleveland,  Pittsburg  and  refineries  in  the 
oil-region.  The  pipe  used  in  transporting  crude  would  girdle  the  earth  twice 
and  leave' a  long  string  for  extra-measure.  Truly  "these  be  piping  times." 

McDonald  gushers  poured  out  their  floods,  but  the  National-Transit  and 
Mellon  Lines  were  on  deck  with  pumps  and  pipes  that  snatched  the  contents  of 
the  tanks  and  whirled  them  to  the  sea.  John  McKeown's  leviathan  at  Wash- 
ington electrified  the  neighborhood  by  starting  at  three-hundred  barrels  an 
hour,  with  only  three  small  tanks  to  hold  the  product.  It  filled  the  first  in  forty 
minutes.  Superintendent  Glenn  Braden  set  up  a  pump  in  thirty  minutes  more 
that  would  empty  the  tank  in  a  half-hour.  All  night  it  was  nip  and  tuck  be- 
tween the  spouter  and  the  pump,  big  Goliath  and  puny  David.  The  pump 
won,  the  oil  was  safe  in  the  line  and  not  a  drop  spilled  !  West-Virginia's  gey- 
sers burst  forth  and  the  Southern  Trunk-Line — three-hundred  miles  of  eight- 
inch  and  six-inch  pipe — linked  Morgantown  to  Philadelphia.  Lima  tried  to 
drown  Ohio  in  crude  and  an  eight-inch  line  quietly  dumped  the  deluge  into 
Chicago.  Part  of  it  fired  the  half-mile  row  of  boilers  at  the  Columbian  Exposi- 
tion, with  not  a  cinder,  a  speck  of  ashes  or  a  whiff  of  smoke  to  dim  the  lus- 
trous flame  of  fuel-oil.  Indiana,  the  home  of  some  pretty  big  statesmen,  some 
pretty  big  oil-territory  and  "the  Hoosier  Schoolmaster,"  had  a  surfeit  of  crude 


FROM   THE    WELL    TO    THE  LAMP. 


279 


which  the  pipe-lines  bore  to  the  huge  refinery  at  Whiting,  to  Cleveland  and  the 
Windy  City.  Thus  the  development  of  new  fields,  remote  from  railroads,  has 
been  rendered  possible. 

Trunk-lines  require  pipe  of  extra  weight,  manufactured  expressly  for  the 
purpose  from  wrought-iron,  lap-welded,  cut  into  lengths  of  eighteen  feet  and 
tested  to  a  pressure  of  two-thousand  pounds  to  the  square  inch.  Pumping- 
stations,  supplied  with  powerful  machinery,  are  located  at  suitable  points, 
generally  twenty-five  to  thirty  miles  apart.  The  stations  on  the  National- 
Transit  trunk-lines  usually  comprise  a  boiler-house  forty  feet  square,  built  of 
brick  and  roofed  with  corrugated  iron,  lighted  by  electricity  and  containing 
seven  or  eight  tubular  boilers  of  eighty  to  one-hundred  horse-power.  For 
greater  safety  from  fire  the  immense  pumps  are  in  a  separate  brick-building. 
The  largest  pumps  are  triple-expansion  crank  and  fly-wheel  engines,  the  inven- 
tion of  John  S.  Klein,  superintendent  of  the  company's  machine-shops  at  Oil 
City.  Each  of  these  giants  can  force  twenty-five-thousand  barrels  of  oil  a  day 
through  three  six-inch  pipes  from  one  station  to  the  next.  A  low-duty  engine 
is  run  when  the  main-pump  is  stopped  for  repairs  or  any  cause.  At  each  sta- 
tion two  or  more  storage-tanks— thirty  to  thirty-five  thousand  barrels  apiece— 
are  provided.  One  receives  the  oil  from  the  preceding  station  while  the  pump 
is  emptying  the  other  into  the  receiver  at  the  station  beyond.  The  movement 
is  incessant.  Night  and  day,  never  tiring  and  never  resting,  the  iron-arteries 
throb  and  pulsate  with  the  greasy  liquid  that  rushes  swiftly  a  yard  beneath  the 
surface,  duplicate  machinery  obviating  the  necessity  of  delay  or  interruption. 
Five  or  six  boilers  are  fired  at  once  and  two  are  held  in  reserve,  in  case  of 
accident.  Loops  are  laid  around  some  of  the  stations,  that  a  pump  may  send 
the  oil  two  or  three  times  the  average  distance  and  the  total  disability  of  a  sta- 
tion not  blockade  the  line.  When  lofty  hills  are  surmounted  the  pressure  on 
the  pump  reaches  twelve  to  fifteen-hundred  pounds.  Independent  telegraph- 
lines  connect  the  stations  with  one  another  and  the  main-offices.  The  engi- 
neers handle  the  key  and  click  messages  expertly.  The  lines  are  patrolled 
regularly  to  detect  leaks,  although  the  system  of  checking  from  tank  to  tank 
makes  it  impossible  for  a  serious  break  to  pass  unnoticed.  To  clear  the  in- 
crustations of  paraffine,  especially  in  cold  weather,  a  scraper  or  "go-devil" 
is  sent  through  the  pipes.  The  best  of  these  instruments — a  spindle  with  a  ball- 
and-socket-joint  near  its  center  to  follow  the  bends  of  the  pipe,  fitted  with  steel- 
blades  set  radially  and  kept  in  position  by  three  arms  in  front  and  rear— was 
devised  by  Mr.  Klein.  Oblique  vanes,  put  in  motion  by  the  running  oil,  rotate 
the  spindle  and  the  blades  scrape  the  pipe  as  the  "go-devil"  is  propelled 
forward.  A  catch-box  is  placed  at  the  end  of  each  division  and  the  queer 
traveler  can  be  closely  timed.  The  great  battery  of  boilers,  the  huge  engine- 
pumps—one  on  the  Lima-Chicago  line  weighs  a  hundred  tons— the  electric- 
plants  and  the  intricate  maze  of  steam-pipes  and  water-pipes  suggest  the  ma- 
chinery of  an  ocean-steamship. 

If  the  railroad  is  "the  missionary  of  punctuality,"  as  Robert  Burdette  con- 
cisely expresses  it,  surely  the  pipe-line  is  the  messenger  of  efficiency.  With 
wondrous  speed  and  unfailing  certainty  it  conveys  crude-oil- from  the  wells  to  the 
refineries  in  or  out  of  the  region,  climbing  hills,  descending  ravines,  fathoming 
rivers  and  traversing  plains  and  forests.  Methods  of  refining  have  kept  pace 
with  progress  in  transportation.  The  smoky,  dangerous,  inconvenient  kettle- 
still  of  the  pioneer  on  Oil  Creek  has  given  place  to  the  mammoth  refinery  of 
to-day,  with  its  labor-saving  appliances,  its  hundreds  of  skilled  employes  and 
19 


28o  SKETCHES  IN   CRUDE   OIL. 

its  improved  processes.  Instead  of  the  ill-smelling,  sputtering,  explosive  mix- 
ture of  earlier  years,  the  world  now  receives  the  water-white  kerosene  that 
burns  as  steadily  and  safely  as  a  wax-taper.  Seventy  tank-vessels  carry  it  over 
the  seas  to  Europe,  Asia  and  Africa.  It  is  delivered  at  your  house  in  neat  cans, 
or  the  grocer  will  sell  it  by  the  pint,  quart,  gallon  or  barrel.  The  light  is  pure 
as  heaven's  own  sunshine,  grateful  to  the  eye  and  beautifying  to  the  home.  No 
other  substance  approaches  petroleum  in  the  number  and  utility  of  its  products. 
Long  years  of  patient  research  and  experiment  have  extracted  from  it  one-hun- 
dred -and-fifty  articles  of  value  in  art,  science,  mechanics  and  domestic  economy. 
It  supplies  healing-salves,  ointments,  cosmetics,  soaps,  dainty  toilet-accessories 
and — oh,  girly  Vassar  girls — chewing-gum  !  Refuse  tar  and  scum  are  converted 
into  lamp-black  and  coarse  lubricants.  Scarcely  a  particle  of  it  goes  to  waste. 
Noxious  gases  and  poisonous  acids  no  longer  pollute  the  air  and  the  streams 
around  refineries,  offending  human  nostrils  and  killing  helpless  fish.  The  amaz- 
ing vastness  of  its  development  is  equalled  only  by  the  marvelous  variety  of 
petroleum's  commercial  uses. 

At  every  stage  of  its  journey  from  the  hole  in  the  ground  to  the  abode  of 
the  purchaser  of  kerosene,  oil  is  handled  with  a  view  to  the  best  results.  The 
pipe-line  relieves  the  producer  from  worry  and  fatigue  and  a  large  outlay,  fur- 
nishing him  prompt  service  and  a  cash  market  at  his  own  door  every  business- 
day  in  the  year.  It  enables  the  refiner  to  fill  the  consumer's  lamp  at  a  trifling 
margin  above  the  price  of  crude.  For  seventy  cents  a  barrel— less  than  half  it 
cost  formerly  to  haul  it  a  mile — the  line  collects  oil  from  the  wells,  pumps  it  into 
the  trunk-lines  and  delivers  it  in  New  York.  Contrast  this  charge  with  the 
four,  five,  eight  or  ten  dollars  exacted  in  the  days  of  boats  and  wagons,  barrels 
and  tank-cars  and  endeavor  to  figure  the  saving  to  the  public  wrought  by  the 
pipe-lines,  to  say  nothing  of  greater  convenience  and  expedition.  The  existing 
transportation-system  may  be  a  monopoly,  but  the  country  is  hungry  for  more 
monopolies  of  the  same  sort.  If  it  be  monopoly  to  bring  order  out  of  chaos, 
to  build  one  strong  enterprise  from  a  dozen  weaklings,  to  consolidate  into  a 
grand  corporation  a  score  of  feeble  lines  and  reduce  freight-rates  seventy-five 
to  ninety-five  per  cent.,  the  National-Transit  Company  is  the  rankest  monopoly 
of  the  century.  It  practices  the  kind  of  monopoly  that  converts  a  row  of  totter- 
ing shanties  into  a  stately  business-block.  It  is  guilty  of  furnishing  storage  solid 
as  the  Rock  of  Gibraltar  to  the  men  who  drilled  oil  down  to  forty  cents  a  bar- 
rel and  tiding  them  over  the  period  of  excessive  production.  This  is  the  brand 
of  monopoly  that  keeps  industry  alive,  that  supplies  foreign  nations  with  an 
American  product  and  benefits  humanity.  If  Van  Syckle,  Abbott  and  Harley 
were  plucky  and  courageous  in  braving  the  wrath  of  four-thousand  teamsters, 
how  much  more  brain  and  brawn,  muscle  and  money,  dollars  and  sense  were 
needed  to  lay  trunk-lines  that  sent  ten-thousand  tank-cars  to  the  junk-pile  and 
diminished  the  revenues  of  railroads  millions  of  dollars  annually  !  The  owners 
of  these  lines  have  grown  rich,  as  they  ought  to  do,  because  for  every  dollar  of 
their  winnings  they  have  saved  producers  and  consumers  of  petroleum  ten. 

Pipe-line  certificates  afforded  an  excellent  medium  for  speculation.  The 
commodity  they  represented  was  subject  to  fluctuations  of  five  to  fifty  per  cent., 
which  made  it  particularly  fascinating  to  speculators  in  stocks.  Oil-exchanges 
were  established  at  Oil  City,  Titusville,  Parker,  Bradford,  Pittsburg,  New  York, 
Philadelphia  and  elsewhere.  In  a  single  year  the  clearances  exceeded  eleven- 
billion  barrels.  Bulls  and  bears  reveled  in  excitement  and  brokers  had  cus- 
tomers from  every  quarter  of  the  country.  The  forerunner  of  these  institutions 


FROM   THE    WELL    TO    THE  LAMP.  281 

was  "  the  Curbstone  Exchange  "  at  Oil  City  in  1870.  The  bulk  of  the  buying 
and  selling  was  done  in  front  of  Lockhart,  Frew  &  Co.'s  office,  Centre  street, 
near  the  railroad  track.  Producers,  dealers  and  spectators  would  congregate 
on  the  sidewalk,  discuss  the  situation,  tell  stories  and  buy  or  sell  oil.  The  group 
in  the  illustration  includes  a  number  of  well-known  citizens.  Most  of  them 
have  left  Oil  City  and  not  a  few  have  gone  from  earth.  Acquaintances  will  rec- 
ognize Dr.  Knox,  John  Mawhinney,  James  Mawhinney,  John  D.  Archbold,  Dr. 
Baldwin,  A.  H.  Bronson,  P.  H.  Judd,  L.  D.  Kellogg,  A.  E.  Fay,  George  Porter, 
Edward  Higbee,  William  M.  Williams,  John  W.  Austin,  J.  M.  Butters,  Joseph 
Bates,  George  W.  Parker,  William  H.  Porterfield,  Charles  W.  Frazer,  Edward 
Simmons,  Samuel  H.  Lamberton,  James  H.  Magee,  Isaac  Lloyd  and  William 


OIL  CITY   "CURBSTONE  EXCHANGE"    IN   1870. 

Elliott.  Charles  Lockhart  and  William  Frew  were  pioneer  refiners  at  Pittsburg 
and  heavy  buyers  of  crude  at  Oil  City.  William  G.  Warden  entered  into  part- 
nership with  them  and  established  the  great  Atlantic  Refinery  at  Point  Breeze. 
In  1874  the  refineries  controlled  by  Warden,  Frew  &  Co.  consolidated  with  the 
Standard  Oil-Company  of  Ohio,  forming  the  nucleus  of  the  Standard  Oil- 
Trust.  Mr.  Warden  built  the  Gladstone,  the  first  large  apartment-house  in 
Philadelphia,  and  died  in  April  of  1895.  He  married  a  daughter  of  Daniel 
Bushnell  and  was  one  of  the  most  enterprising  and  charitable  citizens  of  Penn- 
sylvania. His  surviving  contemporaries  are  old  in  reminiscences  of  Oil  Creek 
and  the  days  when  pipe-lines  and  oil-certificates  were  unguessed  probabilities. 
Trades  were  made  in  offices,  at  wells,  on  streets,  anywhere  and  every- 
where. Purchasers  for  Pittsburg,  Baltimore  and  Philadelphia  refiners  started 
brokerage  in  1868,  on  a  commission  of  ten  cents  a  barrel  from  buyers  and  five 
from  sellers.  The  Farmers'  Railroad,  completed  to  Oil  City  in  1867,  brought. 


282  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE   OIL. 

so  many  operators  to  town  that  a  car  was  assigned  them,  in  which  they  bought 
and  sold  "spot,"  "regular"  and  "future  oil."  There  were  no  certificates, 
no  written  obligations,  no  margins  to  bind  a  bargain,  but  everything  was  done 
on  honor  and  no  man's  word  was  broken.  "  Spot  oil  "  was  to  be  moved  and 
paid  for  at  once,  "regular"  allowed  the  buyer  ten  days  to  put  the  oil  on  the 
cars  and  "future"  was  taken  as  agreed  upon  mutually.  Large  lots  frequently 
changed  hands  in  this  passenger-car,  really  the  first  oil-exchange.  The  busi- 
ness increased,  an  exchange  on  wheels  had  manifest  disadvantages  and  in 
December  of  1869  it  was  decided  to  effect  a  permanent  organization.  Officers 
were  elected  and  a  room  was  rented  on  Centre  street.  It  removed  to  the 
Sands  Block  in  1871,  to  the  Opera-House  Block  in  January  of  1872  and  to  a 
temporary  shed  next  the  Empire-Line  office  in  the  fall,  when  South-Improve- 
ment complications  dissolved  the  organization.  For  about  fifteen  months 
hotels,  streets,  or  offices  sufficed  for  accommodations.  In  February  of  1864  the 
exchange  was  reorganized,  with  George  V.  Forman  as  president,  and  occupied 
quarters  in  the  Collins  House  four  years.  Gradually  rules  were  adopted  and 
methods  introduced  that  brought  about  the  system  afterwards  in  vogue.  In 
April  of  1878  the  formal  opening  of  the  splendid  Oil-Exchange  Building  took 
place.  The  structure  contained  offices,  committee-rooms,  telegraph-lines,  read- 
ing-rooms and  all  conveniences  for  its  four-hundred  members.  H.  L.  Foster, 
now  of  Chicago,  was  president  term  after  term.  The  late  H.  L.  McCance,  sec- 
retary for  years,  was  a  first-class  artist,  with  a  skill  for  caricature  worthy  of 
Thomas  Nast.  Some  of  the  most  striking  cartoons  pertaining  to  oil  were  the 
work  of  his  ready  pencil.  F.  W.  Mitchell  &  Co.  inaugurated  the  advancing 
of  money  on  certificates,  their  bank's  transactions  in  this  line  ranging  from  one 
to  four-million  dollars  a  day.  The  application  of  the  clearing-house  system  in 
1882  simplified  the  routine  and  facilitated  deliveries.  The  volume  of  business 
was  immense,  the  clearances  often  amounting  to  ten  or  fifteen-million  barrels  a 
day.  Only  the  New  York  and  the  San  Francisco  stock-exchanges  surpassed  it. 
If  speculation  were  piety,  everybody  who  inhaled  the  air  of  Oil  City  would 
have  been  saved  and  the  devil  might  have  put  up  his  shutters.  During  rapid 
fluctuations  the  galleries  would  be  packed  with  men  and  women  who  had 
' '  taken  a  flyer  "  and  watched  the  antics  of  the  bulls  and  bears  intently.  For- 
tunes were  gained  and  lost.  Many  a  "lamb  "  was  shorn  and  many  a  ' ' duck  " 
lamed.  It  was  a  raging  fever,  a  delirium  of  excitement,  compressing  years  of 
ordinary  anxiety  and  haste  into  a  week.  Now  the  exchange  is  deserted  and 
speculative  trade  in  oil  is  dead.  Part  of  the  big  building  is  a  clothier's  store 
and  offices  are  rented  for  sleeping-apartments.  Myer  Lowentritt,  Stewart 
Simpson,  "Eddie"  Selden,  Samuel  Justus  and  a  half-dozen  others  are  seen 
occasionally,  but  days  pass  without  a  solitary  transaction,  the  surging  crowds 
have  vanished  and  activity  is  a  dream  of  bygone  years. 

Parker  had  a  lively  oil-exchange  when  the  Armstrong  and  Butler  fields 
were  at  their  height.  The  most  prominent  men  in  speculative  trade  lived  in 
the  town  or  were  represented  in  the  exchange.  Thomas  B.  Simpson  was  a 
large  operator.  George  Darr  was  agent  of  Daniel  Goettel,  who  once  engi- 
neered the  greatest  bull-movement  in  the  history  of  oil  and  was  supposed  to 
have  "cornered  "  the  market.  Charles  Ball  and  Henry  Loomis  earned  sixty- 
thousand  dollars  brokerage  a  year  and  died  within  a  month  of  each  other. 
Trade  slackened  and  expired.  The  boys  shifted  to  Bradford  and  Pittsburg 
and  a  constable  sold  the  building  to  satisfy  Mrs.  W.  H.  Spain's  claim  for 
ground-rent !  The  five-thousand-dollar  library  and  the  costly  pictures,  dust- 


FROM   THE    WELL    TO    THE  LAMP. 


283 


covered  and  neglected,  sold  for  a  trifle  and  went  to  South  Oil  City.  A  jollier, 
bigger- hearted  crowd  of  fellows  than  the  members  of  the  Parker  Exchange 
never  played  a  practical  joke  or  helped  a  poor  sufferer  out  of  "  a  deuce  of  a  fix." 

The  Bradford  Oil-Exchange  started  on  January  first,  1883,  with  five-hun- 
dred members  and  a  forty-thousand-dollar  building.  Five-hundred  others, 
with  Hon.  David  Kirk  as  president,  organized  the  Producers'  Petroleum-Ex- 
change and  erected  a  spacious  brick-block,  occupying  it  on  January  second, 
1884.  Both  exchanges  whooped  it  up  briskly,  both  have  subsided  and  the 
buildings  are  stores  and  offices.  Titusville's  handsome  exchange,  on  the  site 
of  the  American  Hotel,  has  gone  the  same  road.  Captain  Vandergrift  built 
the  Pittsburg  Oil-Exchange,  the  finest  of  them  all,  fitting  it  up  superbly.  A 
bank  and  offices  have  succeeded  the  festive  dealers  in  crude.  From  the  Min- 
ing-Stock Exchange,  the  Miscellaneous  Security  Board  and  several  more  of 
similar  types  the  New- York  Consolidated  Stock  and  Petroleum  Exchange 
developed  a  huge  concern,  with  twenty-f_>ur-hundred  members  and  a  lordly 
building — erected  in  1887 — on  Broadway  and  Exchange  Place.  The  member- 
ship was  the  largest  in  the  country,  with  the  exception  of  the  Produce  Ex- 
change, and  the  business  in  oil  at  times  exceeded  the  transactions  of  the  Stock 
Exchange.  Seats  sold  as  high  as  three-thousand  dollars.  Charles  G.  Wilson 
has  been  president  since  the  organization  of  the  Petroleum  and  Stock  Board, 
which  absorbed  the  National  Petroleum  Exchange — L.  H.  Smith  was  its  presi- 
dent— and  in  1885  adopted  the  elongated  name  that  has  burdened  it  eleven 
years.  Oil  is  not  mentioned  once  a  week,  because  the  stocks  have  declined  to  a 
skeleton  and  the  certificates  represent  scarcely  a  half-million  barrels.  Phila- 
delphia had  an  exchange  of  lesser  degree 
and  a  score  of  oil-region  towns  sharpened 
their  appetite  for  speculation  by  establish- 
ing branch-concerns  and  bucket-shops. 
The  almost  entire  disappearance  of  the 
speculative  trade  is  not  the  least  remark- 
able feature  of  the  petroleum-development. 

Since  the  elimination  of  exchanges  pro- 
ducers generally  sell  their  oil  in  the  shape 
of  credit-balances.  For  their  convenience 
the  Standard  Oil-Company  has  established 
purchasing-agencies  throughout  the  region. 
The  quantity  of  crude  to  the  credit  of  the 
seller  on  the  pipe-line  books  is  ascertained 
from  the  National-Transit  office,  a  check  is 
given  and  all  the  trouble  the  producer  has 
is  to  draw  his  money  from  the  bank.  It  is 
handier  than  a  pocket  in  a  shirt,  easier  than  rolling  off  a  log  in  a  mill-pond, 
and  the  happy  "victim  of  monopoly "  goes  on  his  way  rejoicing  after  the  man- 
ner of  Philip's  converted  eunuch.  If  he  reside  at  a  distance,  be  sojourning  at 
Squedunk  or  in  London,  traveling  with  the  Czar  or  showing  the  Prince  of 
Wales  a  good  time,  a  message  to  the  agency  will  deliver  his  oil  to  Harry  Lewis 
and  the  cash  to  his  own  order  in  a  twinkling.  The  whole  chain  of  purchasing- 
agencies  is  managed  by  Joseph  Seep,  whose  headquarters  are  at  Oil  City.  The 
Standard  has  the  knack  of  selecting  A-i  men  for  responsible  positions— men 
who  are  not  misfits,  square  pegs  in  round  holes  or  small  potatoes  in  the  hill. 
Among  the  capable  thousands  who  represent  the  great  corporation  none  is  bet- 


JOSEPH  SEEP. 


284  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE   OIL. 

ter  adapted  to  his  important  place  than  the  head  of  the  purchasing-agencies. 
He  has  the  tact,  the  experience,  the  knowledge  of  human  nature  and  the 
strength  of  character  the  position  demands.  For  twenty-five  years  he  has  pur- 
chased crude  for  the  company,  up  Oil  Creek,  at  Oil  City  and  down  the  Alle- 
gheny. You  may  not  belong  to  his  church  or  his  party,  you  may  differ  from 
him  on  silver  and  woman-suffrage,  you  may  even  call  the  Standard  an  "  octo- 
pus " — Col.  J.  A.  Vera  first  did  this  at  a  meeting  near  St.  Petersburg  in  1874 — 
and  wish  to  turn  its  picture  to  the  wall,  but  you  like  "Joe  "  Seep  for  his  candor, 
his  manliness,  his  admirable  blending  of  suavity  and  firmness.  He  hails  from 
the  succulent  blue-grass  of  Kentucky,  combines  Southern  ease  and  Northern 
vigor,  lives  at  Titusville  and  enjoys  his  wealth.  It  would  strain  Chicago's  con- 
vention-hall to  hold  his  legions  of  friends.  His  heart  and  his  purse  are  alike 
generous.  He  produces  oil,  buys  oil,  ships  oil  and  "pays  the  freight"  on 
three-fourths  of  the  oil  handled  in  Oildom.  He  and  George  Lewis  and  Harry 
Lewis — "match  "em  if  you  can  " — have  bought  enough  oil  to  fill  a  sea  on  which 
the  navies  of  the  world  might  race  and  leave  room  for  the  Yale  crew  that  crew 
too  soon.  Seep  and  the  Lewises  are  the  gilt-edged  stripe  of  men  who  don't 
drop  banana-skins  on  the  sidewalk  to  trip  up  a  neighbor  or  squirm  with  envy 
because  somebody  else  has  a  streak  of  good-luck.  When  Seep's  last  shipment 
has  been  made,  the  account  is  closed  and  the  Recording  Angel's  ledger  shows 
his  big  credit-balance,  St.  Peter  will  "throw  the  gates  wide  open,"  bid  him 
welcome  and  never  think  of  springing  the  old  gag  :  "Not  for  Joseph,  not  for 
Joe!" 

Sudden  shifts  in  the  market  brought  queer  experiences  in  the  days  of  wild 
oil-speculation,  enriching  some  dabblers  and  impoverishing  others.  Stories  of 
gains  and  losses  were  printed  in  newspapers,  repeated  in  Europe  and  exagger- 
ated at  home  and  abroad.  A  bull-clique  at  Bradford,  acting  upon  "tips  from 
the  inside,"  dropped  four-hundred-thousand  dollars  in  six  months.  An  Oil- 
City  producer  cleared  three-hundred-thousand  one  spring,  loaded  for  a  further 
rise  and  was  bankrupted  by  the  frightful  collapse  Cherry  Grove  ushered  in.  A 
Warren  minister  risked  three-thousand  dollars,  the  savings  of  his  lifetime, 
which  vanished  in  a  style  that  must  have  taught  him  not  to  lay  up  treasures  on 
earth.  A  Pittsburg  cashier  margined  his  own  and  his  grandmother's  hundred- 
thousand  dollars.  The  money  went  into  the  whirlpool  and  the  old  lady  went 
to  the  poor-house.  A  young  Warrenite  put  up  five-hundred  dollars  to  margin 
a  block  of  certificates,  kept  doubling  as  the  price  advanced  and  quit  fifty-thou- 
sand ahead.  He  looked  about  for  a  chance  to  invest,  but  the  craze  had  seized 
him  and  he  hazarded  his  pile  in  oil.  Cherry  Grove  swept  away  his  fortune  in  a 
day.  A  Bradford  hotel-keeper's  first  plunge  netted  him  a  hundred  dollars  one 
forenoon.  He  thought  that  beat  attending  bar  and  haunted  the  Producers' 
Exchange  persistently.  He  mortgaged  his  property  in  hope  of  calling  the  turn, 
but  the  sheriff  raked  in  the  pot  and  the  poor  landlord  was  glad  to  drive  a  beer- 
wagon.  Such  instances  could  be  multiplied  indefinitely.  Hundreds  of  pro- 
ducers lost  in  the  maelstrom  all  the  earnings  of  their  wells,  while  the  small 
losers  would  be  like  the  crowd  John  beheld  in  his  vision  on  Patmos,  "a  great 
company  whom  no  man  can  number."  Wages  of  drivers,  pumpers,  drillers, 
laborers  and  servant-girls  were  swallowed  in  the  quicksands  of  the  treach- 
erous sea. 

Of  course  there  were  many  winners  and  many  happy  strokes  of  fortune. 
In  1876  Peter  Swenk,  of  Ithaca,  N.  Y.,  purchased  through  a  Parker  broker  ten- 
thousand  barrels  at  two  dollars  and  left  orders  to  buy  five-thousand  more 


FROM   THE    WELL    TO   THE  LAMP.  285 

should  the  market  break  to  one-seventy-five.  Returning  home,  he  was  taken 
violently  ill  and  the  market  suddenly  fell  forty  cents,  five  cents  below  his  mar- 
gins. The  day  was  stormy  and  Swenk  could  obtain  no  reports  except  from  Oil 
City,  where  the  break  \vas  eight  cents  greater  than  at  Parker.  The  storm  saved 
Sxvenk,  although  he  did  not  know  it  for  months,  by  crippling  the  wires  and 
shutting  off  communication  between  Oil  City  and  Parker  the  last  hour  of  busi- 
ness. Concluding  the  margins  were  exhausted  and  the  broker  had  sold  the  oil 
to  save  himself,  Swenk  went  west  to  start  anew.  Weeks  after  his  departure 
his  Ithaca  friends  received  urgent  telegrams  from  the  broker  at  Parker.  They 
forwarded  the  messages,  which  informed  him  that,  as  the  market  stood,  he  was 
worth  nineteen-thousand  dollars  and  would  be  wise  to  sell.  Swenk  wired  to 
close  the  whole  matter  and  started  for  Parker.  The  market  jumped  another 
peg  just  before  the  order  to  sell  arrived  and  Swenk  received  twenty-two-thou- 
sand dollars  profits.  He  paid  the  broker  double  commission,  returned  home 
and  bought  a  splendid  farm.  The  faithful  broker  who  managed  this  singular 
deal  is  now  virtually  a  pauper  at  Bradford  and  a  slave  of  rum.  Last  time  we 
met  he  staggered  up  to  me,  his  eyes  bleared  and  his  clothing  in  tatters,  pressed 
my  hand  and  said  :  "Gimme  ten  cents;  I'm  dying  for  a  drink  !" 

A  big  spurt  in  April  of  1895  temporarily  revived  interest  in  oil-speculations. 
Again  the  exchange  at  Oil  City  was  thronged.  Exciting  scenes  of  former  years 
were  renewed  as  the  price  climbed  ten  cents  a  clip.  It  was  refreshing  after  the 
long  stagnation  to  see  the  pool  once  more  stirred  to  its  depths.  From  one-ten 
on  April  fourth  the  price  strode  to  two-eighty  on  April  seventeenth.  Certifi- 
cates were  scarce  and  credit-balances  were  snapped  up  eagerly.  A  few  big 
winnings  resulted,  then  the  reaction  set  in,  the  spasm  subsided  and  matters 
resumed  their  customary  quietude.  Connected  with  this  phenomenal  episode 
the  papers  in  May  told  this  breezy  tale  of  "  Bailey's  Jag  Investment :" 

"C.J.  Bailey,  of  Parkersburg,  drew  seventy-five  hundred  dollars  out  of  the  Commercial 
Bank  of  Wheeling  as  the  earnings  of  a  three-hundred-dollar  investment,  made  involuntarily  and 
unknowingly.  Bailey  is  a  traveling  salesman.  A  little  less  than  a  month  ago  he  made  a  trip 
through  the  West- Virginia  oil-fields.  At  Sistersville  he  got  in  with  a  crowd  of  oil-men,  with 
the  result  that  next  day  he  had  a  big  head,  a  very  poor  recollection  of  what  had  happened  and 
was  three-hundred  dollars  short,  according  to  his  memorandum-book.  He  wisely  decided  that 
the  less  publicity  he  gave  his  loss  the  better  it  would  be  and  kept  still.  On  Friday  he  was  com- 
ing to  Wheeling  on  the  Ohio  River  Railroad,  when  a  stranger  approached  him  with  : 

"  'You  are J.  C.  Bailey,  I  believe.'  " 

"  'Yes,'  replied  Bailey. 

"  '  Well,  you  will  find  seven-thousand-five-hundred  dollars  to  your  credit  in  the  Commercial 
Bank  at  Wheeling,'  replied  the  stranger.  '  I  put  it  there  day  before  yesterday  and  was  about  to 
advertise  for  you.'  " 

' '  Bunco  was  the  first  thought  of  Bailey ;  but  as  the  stranger  d  id  not  ask  for  any  show  of  money 
and  talked  all  right,  he  asked  for  an  explanation.  It  turned  out  that  the  stranger  was  one  of 
the  men  with  whom  Bailey  had  been  out  in  Sistersville.  He  was  also  secretary  and  treasurer  of 
an  oil-company,  which  had  struck  a  rich  well  in  the  back-country  pool  two  weeks  before.  Bailey, 
while  irresponsible,  had  put  three-hundred  dollars  into  the  company's  capital-stock,  on  the 
advice  of  his  friends.  Meantime  the  well  had  been  drilled,  coming  in  a  gusher  of  three-thou- 
sand barrels  a  day,  one-tenth  of  which  belonged  to  Bailey  on  his  three-hundred-dollar  invest- 
ment. Bailey  came  to  Wheeling,  went  to  the  bank  and  found  the  money  awaiting  him.  He  drew 
five-thousand  dollars  to  send  to  his  wife.  Bailey's  good  fortune  is  net  over  yet,  for  the  well  is  a 
good  producer  and  the  company  holds  large  leases,  on  which  several  more  good  wells  are  sure 
to  be  drilled." 

What  of  the  brokers  and  speculators  ?  They  are  scattered  like  chaff.  A 
thousand  have  "gone  and  left  no  sign."  President  Foster,  of  the  Oil  City  Ex- 
change, an  accomplished  musician,  traveler  and  orator,  is  a  Chicagoan.  John 
Mawhinney,  John  S.  Rich— the  fire  at  Rouseville's  burning-well  nearly  destroyed 
his  sight— H.  L.  McCance,  George  Cornwall,  Wesley  Chambers,  Dr.  Cooper, 


286  SKETCHES  TN  CRUDE-OIL. 

A.  D.  Cotton,  T.  B.  Porteous,  Isaac  Reineman,  I.  S.  Gibson,  Charles  J.  Eraser, 
W.  K.  Vandergrift,  B.  W.  Vandergrift,  B.  F.  Hulseman,  Charles  Haines,  Mi- 
chael Geary,  Patrick  Tiernan,  "Shep"  Moorhead,  Melville,  McCutcheon,  Fuller- 
ton  Parker,  George  Harley,  Marcus  Brownson  and  a  host  of  other  familiar  fig- 
ures will  nevermore  be  seen  in  any  earthly  exchange.  "Jimmy"  Lowe— he 
was  a  telegrapher  at  first — Arthur  Lewis,  M.  K.  Bettis,  George  Thumm,  I.  M. 
Sowers  and  a  dozen  more  drifted  to  Chicago.  ' '  Dick ' '  Conn,  ' '  Sam ' '  Blakeley, 
Wade  Hampton,  "Rod"  Collins,  Major  Evans,  Col.  Preston  and  Charles  W. 
Owston  are  residents  of  New  York.  "Tom"  McLaughlin  buys  oil  for  the 
Standard  at  Lima.  "Ajax  "  Kline  is  dissecting  the  Tennessee  field  for  the  For- 
est Oil-Company.  "Cal"  Payne  is  Oil-City  manager  of  the  Standard's  gas- 
interests.  "  Tom  "  Blackwell  is  in  Seep's  purchasing-agency.  John  J.  Fisher  is 
flourishing  at  Pittsburg.  "Charley"  Goodwin  holds  the  fort  at  Kane.  Daniel 
Goettel  and  W.  S.  McMullan  are  running  a  large  lumber-plant  in  Missouri. 
O.  C.  Sherman  is  a  Baptist  preacher  and  Jacob  Goettel  fills  a  Methodist  pulpit. 
Frank  Ripley  and  "Fin"  Frisbee  are  heavy-weights  in  Duluth  real-estate.  C. 
P.  Stevenson,  the  leading  Bradford  broker,  dwells  at  his  ease  on  a  plantation  in 
North  Carolina.  B.  F.  Blackmarr  lives  at  Meadville  and  "  Billy  "  Nicholas  is  a 
citizen  of  Minneapolis.  Some  are  in  California,  some  in  Alaska,  some  in  Florida, 
some  in  Europe  and  two  or  three  in  India.  Go  whither  you  may,  it  will  be  a 
cold  day  if  you  don't  stumble  across  somebody  who  belonged  to  an  oil-ex- 
change or  had  a  cousin  whose  husband's  brother-in-law  knew  a  man  who  was 
acquainted  with  another  man  who  once  saw  a  man  who  met  an  oil-broker.  It 
is  sad  to  think  how  the  capital  fellows  who  juggled  certificates  at  Oil  City, 
Parker  and  Bradford  have  thinned  out  and  the  pall  of  obliteration  has  been 
spread  over  the  exchanges. 

"  So  fallen  !  So  lost !  the  light  withdrawn 

Which  once  they  wore, 
The  glory  of  their  past  has  gone 
Forevermore  !" 

A  pretty  girl  might  as  well  expect  to  escape  admiring  glances  as  petroleum 
to  escape  a  fire  occasionally.  "  Uncle  Billy  "  Smith's  lantern  ignited  the  first 
tank  at  the  Drake  well  and  a  long  procession  has  followed  in  its  smoky  trail. 
The  lantern-fiend  has  been  a  prolific  cause  of  oil-conflagrations,  boiling-over 
refinery-stills  have  not  been  slack  in  this  particular,  the  cigarette  with  a  fool  at 
one  end  and  a  spark  at  the  other  has  done  something  in  the  same  line,  but 
lightning  is  the  champion  tank-destroyer.  The  result  of  an  electric-bolt  and  a 
tank  of  inflammable  oil  engaging  in  a  debate  may  be  imagined.  At  first  tanks 
were  covered  loosely  with  boards  or  wooden  roofs.  The  gas  formed  a  vapor 
which  attracted  lightning  and  kept  up  a  large  production  of  fires  each  season. 
One  vicious  stroke  cremated  sixty  tanks  of  oil  at  the  Atlantic  Refinery  in  1883. 
In  July  and  August  of  1880,  a  quarter-million  barrels  of  McKean  crude  went  up 
by  the  lightning-route.  On  June  eleventh,  1880,  a  flash  collided  with  the  first 
steel-tank  on  which  lightning  had  ever  experimented  and  set  the  oil  blazing. 
The  tank  was  on  a  hill-sMe  three- hundred  feet  from  the  west  bank  of  Oil  Creek, 
at  Titusville.  Several  houses  and  the  Acme  Refinery,  located  between  it  and 
the  stream,  were  consumed.  While  the  burning  oil  flowed  down  the  hill  a  sheet 
of  solid  flame  covered  ten  acres.  Bursting  tanks,  exploding  stills  and  burning 
oils  were  an  unpleasant  promonition  of  the  red-hot  hereafter  prepared  for  the 
wicked.  The  fire  raged  three  days  with  the  fury  of  the  furnace  heated  seven- 
fold to  give  Shadrack,  Meshach  and  Abed-nego  a  roast.  The  Titusville  Battery 
checked  it  somewhat  by  cannonading  the  tanks  with  solid  shot,  which  made 


FROM  THE    WELL  TO  THE  LAMP.  287 

holes  that  let  the  oil  run  into  the  creek.  This  plan  was  tried  successfully  in 
Butler  and  McKean.  The  old  log-house  that  sheltered  the  generations  of  Camp- 
bells on  the  site  of  Petrolia  met  its  fate  by  the  firing  of  Taylor  &  Satterfield's 
twenty-thousand-barrel  tank  on  the  hill  above,  which  fell  a  prey  to  lightning. 
Three  tanks  opposite  the  mouth  of  Bear  Creek,  below  Parker,  stood  together 
and  burned  together,  the  one  singed  by  Jupiter's  shaft  setting  off  its  mates.  The 
scene  at  night  was  of  the  grandest,  multitudes  gathering  to  watch  the  huge 
waves  of  flame  and  dense  clouds  of  smoke.  As  the  oil  burned  down— just  as 
it  would  consume  in  a  lamp— the  tank-plates  would  collapse  and  the  blazing 
crude  would  overflow.  Thousands  of  barrels  would  pour  into  the  Allegheny, 
covering  the  water  for  a  mile  with  flame  and  painting  a  picture  beside  which  a 


?IRST   STEKL  OIL-TANK   STRUCK   BY   LIGHTNING,   AT  TITUSVILLE,  JUNE    I 


volcanic  eruption  resembled  the  pyrotechnics  of  a  lucifer-match.  Many  tanks 
were  burned  prior  to  the  use  of  close  iron-roofs,  which  confine  the  gas  and  do 
not  offer  special  inducements  to  "  the  artillery  of  heaven"  to  score  a  hit.  Of 
late  years  such  fires  have  been  rarities.  All  oil  in  the  pipe-line  to  which  the 
burned  tank  belonged  was  assessed  to  meet  the  amount  lost.  This  was  known 
as  General  Average,  as  unwelcome  in  oil  as  General  Apathy  in  politics, 
General  Depression  in  business,  General  Dislike  in  society  or  General  Weyler 
in  Cuba. 

George  B.  Harris,  a  pioneer  refiner,  died  at  Franklin  in  January  of  1892, 
aged  sixty  years.  A  member  of  the  firm  of  Sims  &  Co.,  he  built  the  first  or 
second  refinery  in  Venango  county,  near  the  lower  end  of  Franklin.  He  pros- 


288  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE  OIL. 

pered  for  years,  but  reverses  swept  away  his  fortune  and  he  was  poor  when 
death  closed  the  scene. 

A  party  of  young  men  from  New  England  started  a  refinery  on  Oil  Creek 
in  the  sixties.  Their  industry,  correct  habits  and  attention  to  business  attracted 
favorable  notice.  Mr.  Trefts,  of  machinery  fame,  one  day  observed  to  a  friend  : 
"  You  mark  my  words  ;  some  day  these  young  men  will  be  rich  and  their  names 
shall  be  a  power  in  the  land.  I  know  it  will  be  so  from  their  industry  and  good 
habits."  This  assertion  was  prophetic.  The  young  man  at  the  head  of  that 
modest  firm  of  young  men  was  H.  H.  Rogers,  now  president  of  the  National- 
Transit  Company.  Speaking  of  his  election  as  supervisor  of  streets  and  high- 
ways at  Fair  Haven,  a  New- York  paper  indulged  in  this  facetious  pleasantry 
regarding  Mr.  Rogers  : 

"  The  people  of  Fair  Haven  have  done  well.  No  man  in  New  York  or  Massachusetts  has 
had  more  exp^pence  with  bad  roads  than  Mr.  Rogers,  or  has  met  with  more  success  in  subduing 
them.  When  he  first  engaged  in  the  petroleum-business  on  Oil  Creek  the  highways  there  were 
rarely  navigable  for  anything  on  wheels,  but  were  open  to  navigation  by  flat-boats  most  of  the 
year.  There  was  something  in  the  mud  of  the  oil-country  at  that  time  which  was  sure  death  to 
the  capillary  glands.  Hairless  horses  and  mules  were  in  the  height  of  fashion.  When  Mr. 
Rogers  arrived  on  the  strange  scene,  poling  his  way  up  to  the  hotel  on  a  sawlog,  he  was  at  once 
chosen  road-supervisor.  In  a  neat  speech,  which  is  still  extant,  Mr.  Rogers  thanked  the  oil-citi- 
zens for  the  confidence  reposed  in  him  and  then  went  to  work.  In  the  first  place,  he  refined  the 
mud  of  the  highways,  taking  from  it  all  the  merchantable  petroleum  and  converting  the  residue 
into  stove-polish  of  an  excellent  quality.  In  the  next  piace,  he  constructed  pipe-lines,  through 
which  the  oil  was  conveyed,  thus  keeping  it  out  of  the  middle  of  the  road,  and  to-day  there  is  a 
boulevard  along  Oil  Creek  that  is  hardly  surpassed  by  the  Appian  Way.  Horses  are  again  cov- 
ered with  hair  and  happiness  sits  smiling  at  every  hearthstone.  The  people  of  Fair  Haven  have 
a  superintendent  of  streets  to  whom  they  can  point  with  pride." 

Dr.  J.  W.  James,  of  Brady's  Bend,  who  drilled  some  of  the  first  wells 
around  Oil  City  and  was  largely  interested  in  the  Armstrong  and  Bradford 
fields,  in  1858  had  a  plant  near  Freeport  for  extracting  coal-oil  from  shale.  At 
a  cost  of  twelve  cents  a  gallon  it  produced  crude-petroleum,  which  the  com- 
pany refined  partially  and  sold  at  a  dollar  to  one-twenty-five.  The  oil  obtained 
from  the  rocks  by  drilling  and  that  distilled  from  the  shale  were  the  same  chemi- 
cally. Dr.  James  read  medicine  with  Dr.  F.  J.  Alter,  who  constructed  a  tele- 
graph Morse  journeyed  from  the  east  to  see  before  perfecting  his  own  device. 
Dr.  Alter's  line  extended  only  from  the  house  about  the  small  yard  and  back  to 
his  study.  Full  of  enthusiasm  over  its  first  performance,  he  cried  out  to  his 
student,  young  James  :  "I  believe  I  could  make  this  thing  work  a  distance  of 
six  miles!"  Bell's  first  telephone — a  cord  stretched  between  two  apple-trees 
in  an  orchard  at  Brantford,  Canada — was  equally  simple  and  its  results  have 
been  scarcely  less  important. 

John  J.  Fisher  bought  the  first  thousand  barrels  of  oil  in  the  new  exchange 
at  Oil  City,  on  April  twenty-third,  1878.  Probably  the  largest  purchase  was  by 
George  Lewis,  who  took  from  a  syndicate  of  brokers  a  block  of  two-hundred- 
thousand  barrels.  The  first  offer  was  fifty-thousand,  increasing  ten-thousand 
until  it  quadrupled,  with  the  object  of  having  Lewis  cry  :  "  Hold  !  Enough  !" 
Lewis  wasn't  to  be  bluffed  and  he  merely  nodded  at  each  addition  to  the  lot 
until  the  other  fellow  weakened,  the  crowd  watching  the  pair  breathlessly. 
"Sam"  Blakeley,  the  most  eccentric  genius  in  the  aggregation,  once  bid  at 
Parker  for  a  million  barrels.  Nobody  had  that  quantity  to  sell  and  he  advanced 
the  bid  five  cents  above  the  quotations.  There  was  not  a  response  and  he 
offered  a  million  barrels  five  cents  below  the  ruling  price,  toying  with  the 
market  an  hour  as  if  it  were  a  foot-ball.  He  played  for  big  stakes,  but  none 
knew  who  backed  him.  Coming  to  Oil  City,  he  reported  the  market  for  the 


FROM   THE    WELL    TO    THE  LAMP.  289 

Derrick  and  cut  up  lots  of  shines.  One  morning  he  looked  glum,  oil  had 
tumbled  and  "Sam"  hired  an  engine  to  whirl  him  to  Corry.  By  nightfall  he 
landed  in  Canada  and  his  oil  was  sold  to  square  his  account  in  the  clearing- 
house. An  hour  after  his  flight  William  Brough  came  up  from  Franklin  to  take 
the  oil  and  carry  "  Sam  "  over  the  drop.  In  the  afternoon  a  sudden  rise  set  in, 
which  would  have  left  Blakeley  twenty-thousand  dollars  profit  had  he  stayed  at 
his  post!  That  was  the  time  "Sam"  didn't  do  "the  great  kibosh,"  as  he 
phrased  it.  For  years  he  has  been  hanging  around  New  York.  He  was  one 
of  the  boys  distinguished  as  high-rollers  and  extinguished  before  the  shuffle 
ended. 

Telegraph-operators  and  messenger-boys  at  the  oil-exchanges  learned  to 
note  the  movements  of  leading  speculators  and  profit  thereby.  Some  of  them, 
with  more  hope  of  gain  than  fear  of  loss,  beginning  in  a  small  way  by  risking 
a  few  dollars  in  margins,  coined  money  and  entered  the  ring  on  their  own  ac- 
count. "Jimmy"  Lowe,  one  of  the  biggest  brokers  at  Parker  and  Oil  City, 
slung  lightning  for  the  Western-Union  when  the  Oil-City  Exchange  needed  the 
services  of  twenty  operators  and  scores  of  messenger-boys.  Among  the  latter 
was  "Jim  "  Keene,  the  Franklin  broker.  He  and  John  Bleakley  often  received 
fifty  cents  or  a  dollar  for  delivering  a  message  to  "Johnnie"  Steele,  who 
stopped  at  the  Jones  House  and  flew  high  during  his  visits  to  Oil  City.  Steele 
and  Seth  Slocum  would  dash  through  the  mud  on  their  black  chargers,  dressed 
in  the  loudest  style  and  sporting  big  diamonds.  These  halcyon  times  have 
passed  away  and  the  oil-exchanges  have  departed.  "The  glories  of  our 
mortal  state  are  shadows." 

In  January  of  1894  the  Producers'  and  Refiners'  Oil-Company  erected  an 
iron-tank  on  the  hill  south-east  of  Titusville.  Lightning  destroyed  the  tank  and 
its  contents  in  May.  The  second  tank  was  built  on  the  spot  in  October  and  on 
June  twelfth,  1895,  lightning  struck  a  tree  beside  it.  The  burning  tree  fired 
the  gas  and  the  tank  and  oil  perished.  The  site  is  still  vacant,  the  company 
deciding  not  to  give  the  electric  fluid  a  chance  for  a  third  strike. 

George  W.  N.  Yost,  who  died  in  New  York  last  year,  was  once  the  largest 
oil-buyer  and  shipper  in  the  region.  He  lived  at  Titusville  and  removed  to 
Corry,  where  he  built  the  Climax  Mower  and  Reaper  Works,  a  church,  a  hand- 
some residence  and  blocks  of  dwellings.  Patents  of  different  kinds  recouped 
losses  in  manufacturing.  With  Mr.  Densmore,  of  Meadville,  he  brought  out  the 
caligraph.  Yost  sold  to  his  partner  and  developed  the  Yost  Typewriter,  organ- 
ized the  American  Writing-Machine  Company  and  fitted  up  the  shops  at  Bridge- 
port, Connecticut,  used  to  manufacture  Sharp's  rifles  during  the  border-troubles 
in  Kansas.  Mr.  Yost  was  a  man  of  striking  personality  and  unflagging  energy. 
He  became  a  strong  spiritualist  and  believed  a  medium,  to  whom  he  submitted 
completely,  put  him  in  communication  with  his  dead  relatives  and  recorded 
their  thoughts  on  his  typewriter. 

The  men  of  the  oil-region  have  ever  been  noted  for  their  commercial  honor. 
It  passed  into  a  proverb— "  honor  of  oil."  The  spirit  of  the  saying,  "  his  word 
is  as  good  as  his  bond,"  has  always  been  lived  up  to  more  closely  in  Oildom 
than  in  any  other  section  of  the  country.  The  force  of  business-obligation  ran 
high  in  the  exchanges  and  among  the  early  dealers  in  crude.  Transactions 
involving  hundreds-of-thousands  of  dollars  occurred  every  day,  without  a  writ- 
ten bond  or  a  scrap  of  paper  save  a  pencil-entry  in  a  memorandum-book. 
Certificates  were  borrowed  and  loaned  in  this  way  and  the  idea  of  shirking  a 
verbal  contract  was  never  thought  of.  The  celerity  with  which  property  thus 


290  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

passed  from  man  to  man  was  one  of  the  striking  features  of  business  in  the 
bustling  world  of  petroleum.  And  the  record  is  something  to  be  proud  of  in 
these  days  of  embezzlements,  defalcations,  breaches  of  trust  and  commercial 
deviltry  generally. 

The  average  tank-steamer  carries  about  two-million  gallons  of  oil  in  bulk 
across  the  Atlantic.  In  addition  to  this  fleet  of  steamers,  scores  of  sailing  ves- 
sels, under  charter  of  the  Orient,  France,  Italy  and  foreign  countries,  load 
cases  and  barrels  of  refined-oil  for  transport  to  European  ports.  American 
wooden-ships  are  chartered  sometimes  to  convey  oil  to  Japan.  Thus  Russian 
competition  is  met  through  the  instrumentality  of  pipe-lines  to  the  coast  and 
transportation  by  water  to  points  many  thousand  miles  away  from  the  wells  that 
produced  the  oil. 

The  production  of  crude-petroleum  in  the  United  States  in  1895,  according 
to  the  statistics  compiled  for  the  Geological  Survey  by  Joseph  D.  Weeks,  was 
fifty-three-million  barrels,  valued  at  fifty-eight-million  dollars.  For  1894  the 
figures  were  fifty-million  barrels  and  thirty-five-million  dollars  respectively. 
All  districts  except  West  Virginia  and  New  York  shared  in  the  increase.  The 
total  production  from  the  striking  of  the  Drake  well  in  1859  to  the  end  of  1895 
was  seven-hundred-and-ten-million  barrels.  Five-hundred-and-seventeen-mil- 
lion  barrels  of  this  enormous  aggregate  represent  the  yield  of  the  Pennsylvania 
and  New-York  oil-fields.  Who  says  petroleum  isn't  a  big  thing  ? 

At  Pittsburg  you  can  easily  gather  a  little  group  of  men,  such  as  Charles 
Lockhart  and  Captain  Vandergrift,  who  recall  the  time  when  the  Tarentum  pe- 
troleum was  termed  "  a  mysterious  grease. "  They  had  a  hand  in  handling  it 
when  the  oil  had  no  commercial  name.  They  watched  Samuel  M.  Kier's  efforts 
to  give  it  a  commercial  name  and  a  marketable  value.  They  saw  it  run  to  waste 
at  first,  they  remember  paying  a  dollar  a  gallon  for  it  and  can  tell  all  about 
Drake's  visit  to  Tarentum.  They  hold  their  breath  when  they  think  of  the  gold 
that  changed  hands  in  Venango  county  after  "Uncle  Billy"  Smith  bored  the 
seventy-foot  hole  below  Titusville,  of  the  wonderful  spread  of  operations  and 
the  dazzling  progress  of  the  commodity  once  despised.  They  noted  the  flow 
of  petroleum  toward  Europe — how  forty  casks  were  sent  to  France  in  1860  as  a 
curiosity  and  thirty-nine-hundred  in  1863  as  a  commercial  venture.  They  have 
seen  this  "mysterious  grease,"  that  used  to  flow  into  the  Pennsylvania  Canal, 
light  the  world  from  the  Pyramids  of  Egypt  to  the  salons  of  Paris,  from  the 
shores  of  Palestine  to  the  Chinese  Wall.  They  have  seen  the  four  salt-and- 
oil  wells  at  Tarentum  and  the  solitary  oil-well  at  Titusville  multiplied  into  a 
hundred-thousand  holes  drilled  for  petroleum  and  a  production  almost  beyond 
calculation.  Do  the  gentlemen  composing  this  little  group  occupy  a  position 
dramatic  in  the  marvelous  events  they  review  ?  Is  petroleum  freighted  with 
interest  and  a  touch  of  romance  at  every  step  of  its  passage  from  the  well  to 
the  lamp  ? 


THE  AMEN    CORNER. 

Better  a  kink  in  the  hair  than  a  kink  in  the  character. 

Good  creeds  are  all  right,  but  good  deeds  are  the  stuff  that  won't  shrink 
in  the  washing. 

Domestic  infidelity  does  more  harm  than  unbelieving  infidelity  and  hearsay 
knocks  heresy  galley-west  as  a  mischief-maker. 

Stick  to  the  right  with  iron  nerve, 
Nor  from  the  path  of  duty  swerve, 
Then  your  reward  you  will  deserve. 

The  Baptists  of  Franklin  offered  Rev.  Dr.  Lorimer,  the  eminent  Chicago 
divine,  a  residence  and  eight-thousand  dollars  a  year  to  become  their  pastor. 
How  was  that  for  a  church  in  a  town  of  six-thousand  population  ? 

' '  Pray— pray— pray  for—' '  The  good  minister  bent  down  to  catch  the  whis- 
per of  the  dying  operator,  whom  he  had  asked  whether  he  should  petition  the 
throne  of  grace — "pray  for  five-dollar  oil !" 

St.  Joseph's  church,  Oil  City,  is  the  finest  in  the  oil-region  and  has  the  finest 
altar  in  the  state.  Father  Carroll,  for  twenty  years  in  charge  of  the  parish,  is  a 
priest  whose  praises  all  denominations  carol. 

You  "want  to  bean  angel?" 

Well,  no  need  to  look  solemn  ; 
If  you  haven't  got  what  you  desire, 

Put  an  ad.  in  the  want  column. 

The  Presbyterian  church  at  Rouseville,  torn  down  years  ago,  was  built,  paid 
for,  furnished  handsomely  and  run  nine  months  before  having  a  settled  pastor. 
Not  a  lottery,  fair,  bazaar  or  grab-bag  scheme  was  resorted  to  in  order  to  raise 
the  funds. 

The  Salvation  Army  once  scored  a  sensational  hit  in  the  oil-regions.  A 
lieutenant  struck  a  can  of  nitro-glycerine  with  his  little  tambourine  and  every 
house  in  the  settlement  entertained  more  or  less  Salvation- Army  soldier  for  a 
month  after  the  blow-up. 

"  Like  a  sawyer's  work  is  life — 

The  present  makes  the  flaw, 
And  the  only  field  for  strife 
Is  the  inch  before  the  saw." 

"What  are  the  wages  of  sin  ?"  asked  the  teacher  of  Ah  Sin,  the  first  Chi- 
nese laundryman  at  Bradford,  who  was  an  attentive  member  of  a  class  in  the 
Sunday-school.  Promptly  came  the  answer  :  "  Sebenty-flive  cente  a  dozen  ; 
no  checkee,  no  washee  !" 

The  first  sound  of  a  church-bell  at  Pithole  was  heard  on  Saturday  evening, 
March  24,  1866,  from  the  Methodist- Episcopal  belfry.  The  first  church-bell  at 
Oil  City  was  hung  in  a  derrick  by  the  side  of  the  Methodist  church,  on  the  site 
of  a  grocery  opposite  the  Blizzard  office.  At  first  Sunday  was  not  observed. 
Flowing  wells  flowed  and  owners  of  pumping  wells  pumped  as  usual.  Work 
went  right  along  seven  days  in  the  week,  even  by  people  who  believed  the 
highest  type  of  church  was  not  an  engine-house,  with  a  derrick  for  its  tower,  a 
well  for  its  Bible  and  a  tube  spouting  oil  for  its  preacher. 

"  If  you  have  gentle  words  and  looks,  my  friends, 

To  spare  for  me — if  you  have  tears  to  shed 
That  I  have  suffered — keep  them  not  I  pray 
Until  I  hear  not,  see  not,  being  dead." 

Many  people  regard  religion  as  they  do  small-pox  ;  they  desire  to  have  it 
as  light  as  possible  and  are  very  careful  that  it  does  not  mark  them.  Most  peo- 
ple when  they  perform  an  act  of  charity  prefer  to  have  it  like  the  measles — on 
the  outside  where  it  can  be  seen.  Oil-region  folks  are  not  built  that  way. 


COL.    LEE   M.    MORTO> 
W.   H.   LONGWELL. 
WARREN   C.    PLUMER. 
COL.   J.   T.    HENRY. 


WALTER    R.   JOHNS. 
MAJOR  W.   W.   BLOSS. 
J.    H.    BOWMAN. 


L.    H.    METCALFE. 
C.    E.   BISHOP. 
HENRY   C.   BLOSS. 
COL.   M.    N.    ALLEN. 


XIL 

THE  LITERARY  GUILD. 

CLEVER  JOURNALISTS  WHO  HAVE  CATERED  TO  THE  PROPLE  OF  THE  OIL  REGIONS — 
NEWSPAPERS  AND  THE  MEN  WHO  MADE  THEM — CULTURED  WRITERS,  POETS  AND 
AUTHORS— NOTABLE  CHARACTERS  PORTRAY  ED  BRIEFLY — SHORT  EXTRACTS  FROM 
MANY  SOURCES — A  BRIGHT  GALAXY  OF  TALENTED  THINKERS— WORDS  AND 
PHRASES  THAT  WILL  ENRICH  THE  LANGUAGE  FOR  ALL  TIME. 


"  Reading  maketh  afull  man."—  Bacon. 

"  Literature  is  the  immortality  of  speech." — Wiltnott. 

"  This  folio  of  four  pages,  happy  work, 
What  is  it  but  a  map  of  busy  life, 
Its  fluctuations  and  its  vast  concerns  t"—Cowper. 

"  News,  the  manna  of  a  day."— Green. 

"  And  a  small  drop  of  ink 

Falling  like  dew  upon  a  thought,  produces  that 

Which  makes  thousands,  perhaps  millions,  think." — Byron. 

"  Books  are  men  of  higher  stature,  the  only  men  that  speak 
Aloud  for  future  times  to  hear."— Mrs.  Browning. 


HIRTY-SIX  YEARS  have  had  their  en- 
trances and  their  exits  since  Col.  Drake's 
little  operation  on  Oil  Creek  played  ducks 
and  drakes  with  lard-oil  lamps  and  tallow- 
dips.  That  seventy-foot  hole  on  the  flats 
below  Titusville  gave  mankind  a  queer 
variety  of  things  besides  the  best  light 
on  "this  grain  of  sand  and  tears  we 
call  the  earth."  With  the  illuminating 
blessing  enough  wickedness  and  jollity 
were  mixed  up  to  knock  out  Sodom  and 
Gomorrah  in  one  round.  The  festive  boys 
who  painted  the  early  oil-towns  red  are 
getting  gray  and  wrinkled,  yet  they  smile 
clear  down  to  their  boots  as  they  think  of 
WHITAKER  Petroleum  Centre,  Pithole,  Babylon,  or 

any  other  of  the  rapid  places  which  shed 

a  lurid  glare  along  in  the  sixties.  The  smile  is  not  so  much  on  account  of  flow- 
ing wells  and  six-dollar  crude  as  because  of  the  rollicking  scenes  which  carmined 
the  pioneer  period  of  Petroleum.  These  were  the  palmy  days  of  unfathomable 
mud,  swearing  teamsters,  big  barrels,  high  prices,  abundant  cash  and  easy 
morals,  when  men  left  their  religion  and  dress  suits  "away  out  in  the  United 
States."  The  air  was  redolent  of  oil  and  smoke  and  naughtiness,  but  there 
was  no  lack  of  hearty  kindness  and  the  sort  of  charity  that  makes  the  angels 

1293) 


ill 


294 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


want  to  flap  their  wings  and  give  "  three  cheers  and  a  tiger."  Even  as  the  city 
destroyed  by  fire  from  heaven  boasted  one  righteous  person  in  the  shape  of 
Lot,  whose  wife  was  turned  into  a  pillar  of  salt  for  being  too  fresh,  so  the  busy 
Oil -Dorado  had  a  host  of  capital  fellows,  true  as  steel,  bright  as  a  dollar  and 
"  quicker'n  greas'd  lightin'  !"  Braver,  better,  nobler,  squarer  men  never  doffed 
a  tile  to  a  pretty  girl  or  elevated  a  heavy  boot  to  the  coat-tails  of  a  scoundrel. 
About  the  wells,  on  the  streets,  in  stores  and  offices  could  be  found  gallant 
souls  attracted  from  the  ends  of  the  world  by  glowing  pictures — real  oil-paint- 
ings— of  huge  fortunes  gained  in  a  twinkling.  Ministers,  lawyers,  doctors,  mer- 
chants, soldiers,  professors,  farmers,  mechanics  and  members  of  every  industry 
were  neither  few  nor  far  between  in  the  exciting  scramble  for  '  'the  root  of  all  evil. ' ' 
A  host  of  changes,  some  pleasing  and  more  unutterably  sad,  have  the  swift 
seasons  brought.  The  scene  of  active  operations  has  shifted  often.  The  great 
Bradford  region  and  the  rich  fields  around  Pittsburg  and  Butler  have  had  their 
innings.  Parker,  Petrolia,  St.  Petersburg,  Millerstown  and  Greece  City  have 
followed  Plumer,  Shaffer,  Pioneer,  Red-Hot  and  Oleopolis  to  the  limbo  of  for- 
saken things.  Petroleum  Centre  is  a  memory  only.  Rousevilleis  reduced  to  a 
skeleton.  Not  a  trace  of  Antwerp,  or  Pickwick,  or  Triangle  is  left.  Enterprise 
resembles  Goldsmith's  "Deserted  Village,"  or  Ossian's  "  Balaclutha. "  Tip- 
Top,  Modoc,  Troutman,  Turkey  City,  St.  Joe,  Shamburg,  Edenburg  and  Buena 
Vista  have  had  their  rise  and  fall.  Fagundas  has  vanished.  Pleasantville  fails 
to  draw  an  army  of  adventurous  seekers  for  oleaginous  wealth.  Tidioute  is  an 
echo  of  the  past  and  scores  of  minor  towns  have  disappeared  completely.  For 
forms  and  faces  once  familiar  one  looks  in  vain.  Where  are  the  plucky  operators 
who  for  a  half-score  years  made  Oil  Creek  the  briskest,  gayest,  liveliest  spot  in 
America  ?  Thousands  are  browsing  in  pastures  elsewhere,  while  other  thou- 
sands have  crossed  the  bridgeless  river  which  flows  into  the  ocean  of  eternity. 

To  keep  matters  straight  and  slake  the  thirst  for  current  literature  news- 
papers were  absolutely  necessary.  Going  back  to  1859,  the  eventful  year  that 
brought  petroleum  to  the  front,  Venango 
"!  county  had  three  weeklies.  The  oldest  of 
;  these  was  the  Spectator,  established  at  Frank- 
'.  lin  in  1849,  by  Albert  P.  Whitaker.  At  the 
goodly  age  of  seventy-eight  he  wields  a  vig- 
orous pen.  A  zealous  disciple  of  Izaak 
Walton  and  Thomas  Jefferson,  he  can  hook 
a  fish  or  indite  a  pungent  editorial  with  equal 
'  dexterity.  He  is  an  encyclopedia  of  political 
lore  and  racy  stories.  His  Spectator  is  no 
idle  spectator  of  passing  incidents.  In  1851 
I  Col.  James  Bleakley,  subsequently  a  prosper- 
;i  ous  producer  and  banker,  secured  an  inter- 
|  est  in  the  plant,  selling  it  in  1853  to  R.  L. 
j  Cochran,  who  soon  became  sole  proprietor 
and  published  the  paper  seven  years.  Mr. 
Cochran  took  an  active  part  in  politics  and 
agriculture  and  exerted  wide  influence.  A  keen,  incisive  writer  and  entertain- 
ing talker,  with  the  courage  of  his  convictions  and  the  good  of  the  public  at 
heart,  his  sterling  qualities  inspired  confidence  and  respect.  Probably  no 
man  in  North-western  Pennsylvania  had  a  stronger  personal  following.  The 
Spectator  flourished  under  his  tactful  management.  It  printed  the  first  "oil 


R.    L.    COCHRAN. 


THE  LITERARY  GUILD. 


295 


report,"  giving  a  list  of  wells  drilling  and  rigs  up  or  building  in  the  spring  of 
1860.  Desiring  to  engage  in  banking,  R.  L.  Cochran  sold  the  paper  to  A.  P. 
Whitaker,  its  founder,  and  C.  C.  Cochran.  The  latter  retiring  in  1861,  Whitaker 
played  a  lone  hand  three  years,  when  the  two  Cochrans  again  purchased  the 
establishment.  A.  P.  Whitaker  and  his  son,  John  H.,  a  first-class  printer,  bought 
it  back  in  1866  and  ran  the  concern  four  years.  Then  the  elder  Whitaker  once 
more  dropped  out,  returning  in  1876  and  resuming  entire  control  a  year  later, 
which  closed  the  shuttlecock  changes  of  ownership  that  had  been  in  vogue  for 
twenty-five  years.  Will.  S.  Whitaker,  an  accomplished  typo  and  twice  the 
nominee  of  his  party  for  mayor,  has  long  assisted  his  father  in  conducting  the 
staunch  exponent  of  unadulterated  Democracy.  Col.  Bleakley  passed  away 
in  1884,  leaving  a  fine  estate  as  a  monument  of  his  successful  career.  He  built 
the  Bleakley  Block,  founded  the  International  Bank,  served  as  City  Council- 
man and  was  partner  in  1842-4  of  John  W.  Shugert  in  the  publication  of  the 
Democratic  Arch,  noted  for  aggressiveness  and  sarcasm.  John  H.  Whitaker 
died  in  Tennessee  years  ago.  R.  L.  Cochran  was  killed  in  June,  1893,  on  his 
farm  in  Sugarcreek  Township,  by  the  accidental  discharge  of  a  gun.  The  paper 
began  regular  "oil  reports"  in  1862,  prepared  by  Charles  C.  Duffield,  now  of 
Pittsburg,  who  would  go  up  the  Allegheny  to  Warren  and  float  down  in  a 
skiff,  stopping  at  the  wells. 

Charles  Pitt  Ramsdell,  a  school-teacher  from  Rockland  Township,  started 
the  American  Citizen  at  Franklin  in  1855.  Sent  to  the  Legislature  in  1858,  he 
sold  the  healthy  chick  to  William  Burgwin  and  Floyd  C.  Ramsdell,  removed  to 
Delaware  and  settled  in  Virginia  a  few  years  before  his  lamented  death  from 
wounds  inflicted  by  an  enraged  bull.  J.  H.  Smith  acquired  Ramsdell's  interest 
in  1861.  The  new  partners  made  a  strong  team  in  journalistic  harness  for  three 
years,  selling  in  1864  to  Nelson  B.  Smiley.  He  changed  the  title  to  Venango 
Citizen.  Mr.  Burgwin  reposes  in  the  Franklin  cemetery.  Mr.  Smith  carries  on 
the  book-trade,  his  congenial  pursuit  for 
three  decades,  and  is  a  regular  contrib- 
utor to  the  religious  press.  Alexander 
McDowell  entered  into  partnership  with 
Smiley,  buying  the  entire  "lock,  stock 
and  barrel"  in  1867.  His  former  associate 
studied  law,  practiced  with  great  credit, 
and  died  at  Bradford.  Major  McDowell, 
now  a  banker  at  Sharon — the  number  of 
Venango  editors  who  blossomed  into 
financiers  ought  to  stimulate  ambitious 
quill-drivers — did  himself  proud  in  the 
newspaper  lay.  His  liberality  and  geni- 
ality won  hosts  of  warm  friends.  He 
tried  his  hand  at  politics  and  was  chosen 
Congressman-at-Large  in  1892,  with 
Galusha  A.  Grow  as  running-mate,  and 
Clerk  of  the  House  in  1895.  A  prime 
joker,  he  bears  the  blame  of  introdu- 
cing Pittsburg  stogies  to  guileless  members  of  Congress  for  the  fun  of  seeing 
the  victims  cut  pigeon-wings  doing  a  sea-sick  act.  Col.  J.  W.  H.  Reisinger 
purchased  the  outfit  in  1869,  guiding  the  helm  skillfully  fifteen  months.  April 
first— the  day  had  no  special  significance  in  this  case— 1870,  E.  W.  Smiley,  the 


E.    W.   SMILEV. 


296  SKETCHES  IX  CRUDE- OIL. 

present  owner  and  cousin  of  Nelson  B.,  succeeded  Reisinger.  The  Colone 
located  at  Meadville,  where  he  has  labored  ably  in  the  journalistic  field  for  a 
quarter-century.  Mr.  Smiley  steered  his  craft  adroitly,  usually  "bobbing  up 
serenely"  on  the  winning  side.  He  is  a  shrewd  Republican  worker  and  for 
twenty  years  has  filled  a  Senate-clerkship  efficiently.  What  he  doesn't  know 
about  the  inside  movements  of  state  and  local  politics  could  be  jumped  through 
the  eye  of  a  needle.  His  right-bower  in  running  the  Citizen-  Press— the  hyphenated 
name  was  flung  to  the  breeze  in  1884 — is  his  son,  J.  Howard  Smiley,  a  rising 
young  journalist.  The  paper  toes  the  mark  handsomely,  has  loads  of  adver- 
tising and  does  yeoman  service  for  its  party.  The  Daily  Citizen,  the  first  daily 
in  Oildom,  expired  on  the  last  day  of  1862,  after  a  brief  existence  of  ten  issues. 
A  fit  epitaph  might  be  Wordsworth's  couplet : 

"  Since  it  was  so  quickly  done  for, 
Wonder  what  it  was  begun  for." 

Later  newspaper  ventures  at  Franklin  were  refreshingly  plentiful.  In  Jan- 
uary, 1876,  Hon.  S.  P.  McCalmont  launched  The  Independent  Press  upon  the 
stormy  sea  of  journalism.  It  was  a  trenchant,  outspoken,  call-a-spade-a -spade 
advocate  of  the  Prohibition  cause,  striking  resolutely  at  whoever  and  whatever 
opposed  its  temperance  platform.  Mr.  McCalmont  wrote  the  editorials,  which 
bristled  with  sharp,  merciless,  unsparing  excoriations  of  the  rum-traffic  and  its 
aiders  and  abettors.  The  paper  was  worthy  of  its  name  and  its  spirited  owner. 
Neither  truckled  for  favors,  cringed  for  patronage  or  ever  learned  to  "  crook  the 
pregnant  hinges  of  the  knee  where  thrift  may  follow  fawning."  Beginning  life 
a  poor  boy,  S.  P.  McCalmont  toiled  on  a  farm,  taught  school,  devoured  books, 
read  law  and  served  in  the  Legislature.  For  nearly  fifty  years  he  has  enjoyed  a 
fine  practice  which  brought  him  well-earned  reputation  and  fortune.  Ranking 
with  the  foremost  lawyers  of  the  state  in  legal  attainments  and  professional  suc- 
cess, he  does  his  own  thinking,  declines  to 
accept  his  opinions  at  second-hand  and  is  a 
first-rate  sample  of  the  industrious,  energetic, 
self-reliant  American.  By  way  of  recreation  he 
works  a  half-dozen  farms,  a  hundred  oil-wells, 
a  big  refinery  and  a  coal-mine  or  two.  James 
R.  Patterson,  Miss  Sue  Beatty  and  Will.  S. 
Whitaker  held  positions  on  the  Press.  Mr. 
Patterson  is  farming  near  Franklin  and  Mr. 
Whitaker  manages  the  Spectator.  Miss  Beatty, 
a  young  lady  of  rare  culture,  was  admitted  to 
the  bar  recently. 

The  Independent  Press  Association  bought 
the  Press  in  1879.     This  influential  body  com- 
prised twelve  stockholders,  Hon.  William  R. 
s.  P.  M'CALMONT.  Crawford,  Hon.  C.  W.  Gilfillan,    Hon.  John 

M.  Dickey,  Hon.  Charles  Miller,  Hon.  Joseph  C.  Sibley,  Hon.  S.  P.  McCalmont, 
Hon.  Charles  W.  Mackey,  James  W.  Osborne,  W.  D.  Rider,  E.  W.  Echols,  B.  W. 
Bredin  and  Isaac  Reineman,  whom  a  facetious  neighbor  happily  termed  "the 
twelve  apostles,  limited."  They  enlarged  the  sheet  to  a  nine-column  folio, 
discarded  the  bourgeois  skirt  with  long-primer  trimmings  for  a  tempting  dress  of 
minion  and  nonpareil  and  engaged  J.  J.  McLaurin  as  editor.  H.  May  Irwin,  the 
second  editor  under  the  new  administration,  filled  the  bill  capably  until  the  Press 
and  the  Citizen  buried  the  hatchet  and  blended  into  one.  Mr.  Irwin  is  not 


THE  LITERARY  GUILD. 


297 


excelled  as  an  architect  of  graceful,  felicitous  paragraphs  on  all  sorts  of  subjects, 
"from  grave  to  gay,  from  lively  to  severe."  He  possesses  in  eminent  degree 
the  enviable  faculty  of  saying  the  right  thing  in  the  right  way,  tersely,  pointedly 
and  attractively.  The  Press  was  a  model  of  typographical  neatness,  newsiness 
and  thorough  editing,  with  a  taste  for  puns  and  plays  on  words  that  added  zest 
SHESJeaSff  *°  **s  columns.  In  1863-4  Mr.  Irwin  was  a 
compositor  and  city-editor  of  the  Harrisburg 
Patriot  and  Union,  when  Samuel  C.  Miller 
was  an  apprentice,  C.  M.  McDowell  set  type 
and  John  Ferguson  was  assistant-foreman. 
He  represented  the  Associated  Press  and 
various  newspapers  in  Washington,  knew 
everybody  and  was  on  the  top  wave  of  popu- 
larity. 

James  B.  Borland's  Evening  News  ap- 
peared in  February,  1878,  as  an  amateur 
daily  about  six  by  nine  inches.  The  small 
seed  quickly  grew  to  a  lusty  plant.  James 
B.  Muse  became  a  partner,  enlargements 
were  necessary,  and  to-day  the  News  is  a 
JAMES  B.  BORLAND.  seven-column  folio,  covering  the  home  field 

and  deservedly  popular.     Muse  retired  in  1880,  H.  May  Irwin  buying  his  share 
and  editing  the  wide-awake  paper  in  capital  style.     The  News  is  independent 
in  politics,  very  much  alive  to  the  welfare  of  Franklin,  brimful  of  fresh  matter 
and  never  dull.     Every  Evening,  a  creditable  venture  by  Frank  Truesdell,  E. 
E.  Barrackman  and  A.  G.  McElhenny,  bloomed  every  evening  from  July,  1878, 
to  the  following  March.     Truesdell,  who  went  to  Titusville,  and  Barrackman, 
who  went  west,  sold  out  to  Will.  S.  Whitaker,  McElhenny,  a  sharp  pencil- 
pusher  and  horny-handed  granger,  remaining  until  the  fledgling  passed  in  its 
checks.     H.  B.  Kantner,  a  versatile  specimen,  hatched  out  the  Morning  Star, 
Franklin's  only  morning  daily,  in  1880.     It  shone  several  months  and  then  set 
forever  and  ever.     Kantner  drifted  to  Col- 
orado.    The  Herald,  the  Penny  Press  and 
Pencil  and  Shears  wriggled  a  brief  space 
and  "fell  by  the  wayside."     Samuel  P. 
Brigham,  an  aspiring  young  lawyer,  edited 
the  one-cent  Press  and  stirred  up  a  hor- 
net's nest  by  fiercely  assailing  the  water-     ; 
works  system  and  raising  Hail  Columbia 
generally.     He  is  at  the  head  of  a  news-     j 
paper  in  the  Silver  State.   Will.  F.  Lapsley     I    . 
dished  up  the  second  Every  Evening  a     j 
short  time  last  summer. 

The  third  weekly  Venango  boasted  in  j 
1859  was  the  Allegheny-  Valley  Echo,  pub-  i. 
lished  at  Emlenton  by  Peter  O.  Conver,  a  w" 

most  erractic,  picturesque  genius.  Learning  the  printing  trade  in  Franklin,  the 
anti-slavery  agitation  attracted  him  to  Kansas  in  1852.  He  established  a  paper 
at  Topeka,  which  intensified  the  excitement  a  man  of  Conver's  temperament 
was  not  calculated  to  allay,  and  it  soon  climbed  the  golden  stair.  Other  experi- 
ments shared  the  same  fate.  Conver  roamed  around  the  wild  and  wooly  west 


ITHITAKKR. 


298 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


several  years,  returned  to  Venango  county  and  perpetrated  the  Echo  in  the  fall 
of  1858.  At  intervals  a  week  passed  without  any  issue,  which  the  next  number 
would  attribute  to  the  sudden  departure  of  the  "jour,"  the  non-arrival  of  white 
paper,  or  the  absence  of  the  irrepressible  Peter  on  a  convivial  lark.  Sparkling 
witticisms  and  "gems  of  purest  ray"  frequently  adorned  the  pages  of  the  sheet, 
although  sometimes  transgressing  the  rules  of  propriety.  It  was  the  editor's 
habit  to  set  up  his  articles  without  a  manuscript.  He  would  go  to  the  case  and 
put  his  thoughts  into  type  just  as  they  emanated  from  his  fertile  brain.  Poetry, 
humor,  satire,  invective,  comedy,  pathos,  sentiment  and  philosophy  bunched 
their  hits  in  a  medley  of  clean-cut  originality  not  even  "John  Phcenix"  could 
emulate.  The  printer-editor  had  a  fund  of  anecdotes  and  adventures  picked  up 
during  his  wanderings  and  an  off-hand  magnetism  that  insured  his  popularity. 
His  generosity  was  limited  only  by  his  pocket-book.  Altogether  he  was  a 
bundle  of  strange  contradictions,  "  whose  like  we  shall  not  look  upon  again," 
big-hearted,  impatient  of  denial,  heedless  of  consequences,  indifferent  to  praise 
or  blame,  sincere  in  his  friendships  and  with  not  an  atom  of  sham  or  hypocrisy 
in  his  manly  fiber.  He  enlisted  in  the  Fourth  Pennsylvania  Cavalry  when  the 
war  broke  out,  serving  gallantly  to  the  close  of  the  struggle  at  Appomattox. 

R.  F.  Blair,  who  had  taken  the  Echo  in  1861,  disposed  of  it  in  1863  to  J.  W. 
Smullin,  by  whom  the  materials  were  removed  to  Oil  City.  Walter  L.  Porter's 
Rising  Sun,  W.  R.  Johns'  Messenger,  Needle  &  Crowley's  Register,  P.  Mc- 
Dowell's News,  Col.  Sam.  Young's  Telegraph,  Hulings  &  Moriarty's  Times 
and  Gouchler  Brothers'  Critic  in  turn  flitted  across  the  Emlenton  horizon. 
The  Rising  Sun  proved  a  setting  sun,  the  Messenger  speeded  to  the  end  of  its 
journey  very  quickly  for  a  messenger,  the  Register  did  not  register  enough  pay- 
ing subscribers,  the  News  had  too  few  readers 
of  iis  news,  the  Telegraph  flashed  out  young, 

£jf^*"  I     the  Times  was  ahead  of  the  times  and  the  Critic 

I     speedily  sank  into  a  critical  condition.     E.  H. 
I     Cubbison  projected  the  Home  News  in  1885, 

•jgjll' '<ffV    |r  I     enlarged  it  repeatedly,  killed  the  first  section  of 

I     the  name,  paid  special  attention  to  home  news 
V.  ,Jfc"  I     and  was  rewarded  by  liberal  support.     He  still 

holds  the  fort. 

( '.ruinu;-  bark  from  the  war  safe  and  sound, 
-d^^L  j&i  I     Conver  pitched  his  tent  at  Tionesta  in  1866  and 

p/j^^B  I     generated  the  Forest  Press.     Its  peculiar  motto 

— "The  first  and  only  paper  printed  in  Forest 

tijr  '">'•-  I     county  and  about  the  only  paper  of  the  kind 

[ .___._  jfli  IB*  printed  anywhere" — indicated  the  novel  stripe 
of  this  unique  weekly.  The  crowning  feature 
was  its  department  of  "Splinters,"  which  in- 
cluded the  weird  creations  of  the  owner's  vivid  fancy.  The  Press,  after  running 
smoothly  a  dozen  years,  did  not  long  survive  its  eccentric,  gifted  proprietor,  who 
answered  the  final  roll-call  in  the  spring  of  1878,  meeting  death  unflinchingly. 
He  wrote  a  short  will  and  asked  Samuel  D.  Irwin,  his  trusted  adviser,  to  prepare 
his  obituary,  "sense  first,  nonsense  afterwards."  The  Bee,  which  Col.  Reis- 
inger  hived  in  1867,  sipped  honey  a  season  and  flew  away.  Muse's  Vindicator 
and  Wenk's  Republican  now  occupy  the  field.  Mrs.  Conver  left  Tionesta  and 
died  in  the  west.  Hosts  of  old  friends  who  knew  and  understood  Peter  O. 
Conver  will  be  glad  to  see  his  characteristic  portrait,  from  a  photograph 


• 


COL.  J.  W.   H.   REISINGER. 


THE  LITERARY  GUILD. 


299 


treasured  by  Judge    Proper,  and  "a  nosegay  of  culled  flowers"  from  his   in- 
imitable Press : 

"  That  marble  slab  has  arrived  at  last.  Our  own  beautiful  slab,  with  its  polished  surface, 
was  manufactured  expressly  to  our  order,  on  which  to  impose  the  forms  of  the  Forest  Press, 
a  fit  emblem  and  unmistakable  evidence  of  the 
almost  unparalleled  success  of  an  enterprise 
started  in  the  very  hell  of  the  season  and  cir- 
cumstances on  a  one-horse  load  of  old,  good- 
for-nothing,  worn-out,  rotten  and  "bottled" 
material,  taken  in  payment,  etc.,  and  a  will  to 
succeed.  After  we  shall  have  fulfilled  our  mis- 
sion through  the  Press  and  have  done  with  the 
things  of  earth,  that  same  slab  can  be  used  by 
the  weeping  "devils"  on  which  to  dance  a 
good-bye  to  us  and  our  sins,  after  which  they 
may  inscribe  with  burning  charcoal  on  its  pol- 
ished surface,  in  letters  of  transient  darkness : 


'Here 


lies 


Pete. 
The 


dead.' 

"  Our  mother  was  a  Christian,  the  best 
friend  we  had,  and  the  name  of  her  truant  son 
— your  servant — was  the  last  she  uttered.  We 
are  not  a  Christian,  but  when  convinced  we 
should  be  we  will  be.  Never  intend  to  marry 
or  die,  if  we  can  help  it.  In  brief,  we  are  a  white 
Indian." 

"A  promissory  note  is  tuning  the  fiddle 
before  the  performance." 

"A  man  suffering  from  dyspepsia  sees 
nothing  bright  in  the  noonday  sun.  Another'' 
with  a  rusty  liver  looks  upon  a  flower-garden 
as  so  many  weeds.  Another  with  nerves  at 
angles  sees  nothing  lovely  in  the  most  beautiful 
woman.  Another  with  a  disordered  stomach 
can  utter  no  word  not  tinged  with  acid  and 
fire." 

"  Smiles  are  among  the  cheapest  and  yet 
richest  luxuries  of  life.  We  do  not  mean  the 
mere  retraction  of  the  lips  and  the  exhibition  of 
two  rows  of  masticators— mastiffs,  hyenas  and 
the  like  amiabilities  are  proficient  in  that.  We 
do  not  mean  the  cold,  formal  smile  of  politeness, 
that  plays  over  the  features  like  moonlight  on  a 
glacier — automatons  and  villains  can  do  that; 
but  we  mean  the  real,  genial  smile  that  breaks 
right  out  of  the  heart,  like  a  sunbeam  out  of  a 
cloud,  and  lights  up  the  whole  face  and  shines 
straight  into  another  heart  that  loves  it  or 
needs  it." 

•'  Ravish  ingly  rich  and  gorgeous  is  our  sur- 
rounding scenery  smiling  down  upon  us  in  all 
the  dying  glory  of  these  autumn  days, like  the  summery  land  scape  in  childhood's  dreams.impressed 
on  the  heart  but  not  described  ;  like  the  soul-beam  of  a  good  old  person  passim?  a\\  ay.  View  all 
the  grand  and  beautiful  scenes  of  earth  with  the  aid  of  imagination's  pencil  if  you  please,  and 
them  come  to  Tionesta  in  October  and  behold  the  masterpiece.  It  is  the  finishing  touch  of  beauty 
from  the  Master  Hand,  imparting  joy  and  faith  and  hope  and  resignation  to  the  heart  of  man, 
which  no  human  pen  or  pencil  may  copy  and  combinations  of  words  have  not  been  discovered  to 
describe ;  in  fact,  we  have  almost  come  to  the  conclusion  that  he  who  attempts  it  is  a  presuming 


PKTKR 


5NVER. 


300  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

fool,  because  there's  no  language  in  the  dictionary  or  even  invented  by  the  poet  to  that  effect. 
But  if  we  only  live  till  the  sun  shines  to-morrow,  on  such  another  day  as  this,  we'll  dig  our  potatoes, 
from  which  patch  we  can  obtain  mountain  views  on  every  hand  alongside  of  which  the  Rocky 
Mountains  would  appear  overgrown  and  unnatural  and  Alpine  scenery  worn-out." 

"  The  first  great  damper  that  threw  cold  water  on  the  Fourth  of  July  was,  perhaps,  the  agita- 
tion of  the  temperance  question  ;  then  the  Sunday-school  celebrations  gave  a  mortal  blow  to  its 
ancient  prestige  and  glory,  until  now,  alas  !  it  has  been  entirely  eclipsed.  Bantlings  of  the  third 
generation  are  soaring  aloft  in  place  of  the  old  gray  bird,  niggers  dancing  jubas  over  the  heads  of 
their  imperial  masters  and,  great  heavens  !  the  very  whiskey  that  we  drink  at  $3  to  $7  a  gallon  in 
mortal  jeopardy.  But,  seriously  speaking,  we  are  in  favor  of  every  one  following  the  bent  of  his 
or  her  own  inclination  in  celebrating  things.  Next  week  will  be  our  usual  occasion  forgetting 
full,  unless  we  should  accompany  a  very  beautiful  young  lady  hunting,  in  either  of  which  events 
the  Press  may  also  have  a  celebration  of  its  own  and  not  appear  in  public  on  any  stage." 

"  Lieut.  Samuel  D.  Irwin  is  a  rare,  original  genius,  a  companion  of  our  boyhood,  whose  life 
has  been  lively  and  stirring  as  our  own  in  some  respects.  He  is  also  a  candidate  for  District 
Attorney." 

"  Some  people  don't  care  much  whether  things  go  endwise  or  otherwise." 

"  Next  to  a  feast  upon  a  seventeen-year-old  pair  of  sweet  lips,  under  grapevines,  by  moon- 
light, is  a  foray  upon  a  platter  of  beans,  after  fishing  for  suckers  all  day." 

"  One  of  the  greatest  bores  in  the  world  is  he  who  will  persistently  gabble  about  himself  when 
you  want  to  talk  about  yourself." 

"  Pay  your  debts  and  shame  the  devil  for  an  old  scoundrel." 

"  Bright  and  fair  as  a  Miss  in  her  teens  is  this  beautiful  March  morning.  All  nature  laughs 
with  gladness.  Forest  feels  glad,  the  streams  sing  a  glad  song  in  their  swim  to  the  sea,  Tionesta 
is  glad  and  the  big  greyhound  Charley  Holmes  sent  Major  Hulings  wags  his  sharp  tail  in  token 
of  the  gladness  and  gratitude  he  cannot  otherwise  express.  He  is  a  gentlemanly,  well-bred ,  $500 
purpand  got  to  have  his  meals  regularly." 

"  Do  unto  other  men  as  you  would  have  them  do  unto  you  and  you  wouldn't  have  money 
enough  in  two  weeks  to  hire  a  shirt  washed." 

"Many  a  preacher  complains  of  empty  pews  when  they  are  really  not  emptier  than  the 
pulpit." 

"  The  man  who  can  please  everybody  hasn't  got  sense  enough  to  displease  anybody." 

"  To  be  good  and  happy  kick  up  your  heels  and  holler  Hallelujah  !" 

"  Rev.  Brown  will  preach  everybody  to  hell  on  the  Tubb's  Run  Flats,  Lord  willing,  next 
Sunday,  between  meals." 

On  the  twelfth  of  January,  1862,  Walter  R.  Johns,  who  struck  the  territory 
four  weeks  previously,  issued  the  initial  number  of  the  Oil-City  Weekly  Register, 
the  first  newspaper  devoted  especially  to  the  petroleum  industry,  which  it  upheld 
tenaciously  for  five  years.  The  modest  outfit,  purchased  second-hand  at 
Monongahela  City,  was  shipped  to  Pittsburg  by  boat,  to  Kittanning  by  rail  and 
to  its  destination  by  wagons.  The  editor,  publisher,  proprietor  and  compositor 
— Mr.  Johns  outdid  Pooh-Bah  by  combining  these  offices  in  his  own  person — 
accompanied  the  expedition  to  aid  in  extricating  the  wagons  from  mud-holes  in 
which  they  stuck  persistently.  In  1866  he  retired  in  favor  of  Henry  A.  Dow  & 
Co.,  -who  fathered  the  Daily  Register  and  soon  found  the  cake  dough.  Farther 
on  Mr.  Johns  was  identified,  editorially  or  in  a  proprietary  way,  with  the  semi- 
weekly  Petrolian  and  the  Evening  Register,  the  Parker  Transcript,  the  Em- 
lenton  Messenger,  the  Lebanon  Republican,  the  Clarion  Republican- Gazette 
and  the  Foxburg  Gazette.  Writing  with  great  readiness  and  heartily  in  touch 
with  his  profession,  he  took  to  literary  work  as  a  duck  takes  to  water.  He  and 
the  late  Andrew  Cone  prepared  all  the  petroleum -statistics  available  in  1862, 
which,  with  the  gatherings  of  the  years  intervening,  were  published  in  1869, 
under  the  expressive  title  of  "Petrolia."  From  Clarion,  his  home  for  some 
years,  Mr.  Johns  returned  to  Oil  City,  doing  valuable  work  for  the  Derrick  and 
the  Blizzard.  For  seven  years  he  has  been  employed  by  the  National  Transit 
Company  to  compile  newspaper-clippings  and  magazine-articles  and  arrange 
records  of  different  kinds  from  every  quarter  of  the  oil-regions.  The  duty  is 
congenial  and  he  fits  the  place  "like  der  paper  mit  der  wall."  Mr.  Johns  is  a 


THE  LITERARY  GUILD.  301 

son  of  Louisiana  and  a  hero  of  two  wars.  During  the  Mexican  trouble  he  fought 
under  Zachary  Taylor  and  Winfield  Scott,  was  at  the  battles  of  Monterey  and 
Buena  Vista  and  participated  in  the  march  from  Puebla  to  the  City  of  Mexico. 
He  served  under  General  Grant  in  the  "late  unpleasantness."  The  death  of  his 
estimable  wife  several  years  ago  was  a  terrible  blow  to  the  Nestor  of  petroleum 
journalism,  who  has  gained  distinction  as  printer,  editor,  author  and  soldier. 

"  Age  sits  with  decent  grace  upon  his  visage 
And  worthily  becomes  his  silver  locks  ; 
He  hears  the  marks  of  many  years  well  spent. 
Of  virtue,  truth  well  tried  and  wise  experience." 

With  the  plant  of  the  defunct  Emlenton  Echo,  which  he  had  bought  from 
R.  F.  Blair  and  boated  to  Oil  City,  J.  W.  Smullin  propelled  the  Monitor  in  1863. 
O.  H.  Jackson,  a  sort  of  perambulatory  printing-office,  and  C.  P.  Ramsdell 
figured  in  the  ownership  at  different  times.  Jackson  let  go  in  the  fall  of  1864 
and  Jacob  Weyand  bossed  the  ranch  until  it  was  absorbed  by  the  Venango  Re- 
publican, the  first  out-and-out  political  newspaper  in  the  settlement.  Smullin 
farmed  in  Cranberry  township,  dispensed  justice  as  "  'Squire"  and  died  in  1894. 
Of  Jackson's  whereabouts  nothing  is  known.  He  flaunted  the  Sand-Pump  at 
Oil  City,  the  Bulletin  at  Rouseville,  the  Gaslight  at  Pleasantville  and  ephemeral 
sheets  at  other  points.  The  outfits  of  the  Register,  Peirolian,  Republican  and 
Monitor  were  consolidated  in  December,  1867,  by  Andrew  Cone  and  Dr.  F.  F. 
Davis,  into  the  weekly  Times.  The  paper  was  well  managed,  well  edited  and 
well  sustained.  A  syndicate  of  politicians  bought  it  in  1870,  to  boom  C.  W. 
Gilfillan,  of  Franklin,  for  Congress,  and  George  B.  Delamater,  of  Meadville,  for 
State  Senator  in  the  Crawford  district.  A  morning  daily  was  tacked  on.  L.  H. 
Metcalfe,  who  lost  a  leg  at  Gettysburg,  had  editorial  charge.  Thomas  H.  Mor- 
rison, of  Pleasantville,  officiated  as  manager,  W.  C.  Plumer  presided  as  foreman 
and  A.  E.  Fay  acted  as  local  news-hustler.  The  daily  died  with  the  close  of  the 
campaign,  a  fire  that  destroyed  the  establishment  hurrying  the  dissolution. 
Metcalfe  went  back  to  Meadville  and  was  elected  county-treasurer.  Whole- 
souled,  earnest  and  trustworthy,  he  made  and  retained  friends,  wrote  effectively 
and  "served  his  day  and  generation"  as  a  good  man  should.  The  grass  and 
the  flowers  have  bloomed  above  his  head  for  nineteen  years.  Morrison  entered 
politics,  put  in  a  term  faithfully  as  county-treasurer,  studied  law,  practiced  at 
Smethport  and  was  elected  judge  of  the  McKean- Potter  district. 

Hon.  Andrew  Cone,  to  whose  bounteous  purse  and  willing  pen  the  Venango 
Republican  and  the  Oil  City  Times  owed  their  continuance,  was  of  Puritan 
descent,  born  in  1822,  near  Rochester,  N.  Y.  His  father  left  New  England  in 
1817  and  in  1820  married  Mary  L.  Andrews,  daughter  of  Nathanael  Andrews 
of  Connecticut,  and  sister  of  Mrs.  Charles  G.  Finney,  wife  of  the  founder  and 
first  president  of  Oberlin  College,  Ohio.  One  of  Dr.  Finney's  daughters  is  the 
wife  of  General  Jacob  D.  Cox,  ex-Governor  of  Ohio,  and  another  the  wife  of 
James  Monroe,  ex-Consul-General  of  the  United  States  at  Rio  Janeiro.  Bishop 
Andrews,  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  and  Hon.  Charles  Andrews,  the 
distinguished  Judge  of  the  Court  of  Appeals  of  New  York,  are  cousins  of  Andrew 
Cone.  Educated  at  Middleburg  Academy,  young  Andrew  married  Miss  M.  L. 
Hibbard,  of  Frederick  county,  Md.,  and  settled  on  his  father's  farm.  His 
parents  dying,  he  removed  to  Michigan,  where  he  lost  his  young  wife  and  in 
1857  married  Miss  Belinda  Morse,  of  Elmira,  N.  Y.  She  died  after  the  birth  of 
two  children.  In  1862  Mr.  Cone  came  to  Oil  City  and  for  four  years  was  super- 
intendent of  the  United  Petroleum  Farms  Association,  the  powerful  corporation 


302  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

that  controlled  numerous  oil-tracts  and  miles  of  city-lots.  He  was  also  vice- 
president  of  the  Oil  City  Savings  Bank,  organizer  of  the  first  Good  Templar 
lodge  and  among  the  founders  of  the  Baptist  church,  superintending  the  Sab- 
bath-school and  giving  thousands  of  dollars  towards  the  erection  of  the  first 
house  of  worship.  Some  of  the  streets  he  named  from  members  of  the  Associa- 
tion, as  Bissell  and  Harriot  avenues,  in  honor  of  George  H.  and  Harriot  Bissell. 
When  he  resigned  the  superintendency — the  late  Dr.  Charles  A.  Cooper,  of  happy 
memory,  succeeded  him — the  company  presented  Mr.  Cone  with  a  corner  lot  on 
Bissell  avenue,  the  leading  residence  street.  In  1868  he  married  Miss  Mary 
Eloisa  Thropp,  of  Valley  Forge,  a  cultured  linguist,  essayist  and  magazine- 
writer.  At  that  time  he  was  publishing  the  Times  and  collecting  the  data  for 
his  historical  "Petrolia,"  a  perfect  storehouse  of  facts  and  figures  pertaining  to 
oil.  Appletons  printed  the  book,  which  involved  immense  labor  and  painstaking 
research.  Governor  Hartranft  appointed  Mr.  Cone  to  represent  the  oil-regions 
as  a  State  Commissioner  to  the  Woild's  Exposition  at  Vienna,  in  1873.  With 
his  wife  he  traveled  over  Austria,  Italy,  Germany,  France,  Switzerland  and 
Great  Britain,  Mrs.  Cone  writing  lucid  descriptive  letters  as  foreign  correspond- 
ent of  the  Philadelphia  Inquirer  and  Oil-City  Derrick.  Failing  health  obliging 
him  to  seek  a  milder  climate  in  1876,  of  five  consulates  offered  by  President 
Grant  he  chose  that  at  Para,  Brazil,  none  the  less  readily  that  he  had  enter- 
tained the  Brazilian  Emperor,  Dom  Pedro,  during  his  visit  to  Oil  City.  He  per- 
formed his  official  duties  with  the  same  correctness  and  fidelity  that  marked  his 
discharge  of  every  obligation.  Reappointed  by  President  Hayes  to  be  consul  at 
Pernambuco,  he  obtained  his  first  leave  of  absence  and  returned  to  New  York  in 
September  of  1880,  hoping  to  regain  his  wonted  strength.  The  hope  was  vain, 
for  on  the  seventh  of  November  he  died,  peacefully  closing  his  useful  and  honor- 
able career  as  one  to  whom  "well  done,  good  and  faithful  servant,"  is  spoken 
through  all  the  centuries. 

Mrs.  Cone,  the  eldest  of  three  sisters  prominent  in  literature,  still  resides  in 
Oil  City  and  contributes  occasionally  to  magazines  and  newspapers.  She 
warmly  seconded  her  husband's  benevolent  and  literary  efforts,  accompanied 
him  to  Europe  and  lived  five  years  in  Brazil.  Her  early  poems  were  published 
in  the  New  York  Knickerbocker,  Graham' s  Magazine  and  Godey's  Lady's 
Book.  In  1860  she  opened  a  select  school  in  Philadelphia  for  young  ladies  and 
in  1865  was  appointed  by  the  United-States  Sanitary  Commission,  with  three 
other  ladies,  to  distribute  supplies  to  sick  and  wounded  prisoners  at  Richmond. 
They  were  the  first  Northern  ladies  to  reach  the  Confederate  capital  after  Lee's 
surrender.  In  1878  she  wrote  her  celebrated  poem  for  the  centennial  at  Valley 
Forge,  her  birthplace  and  the  home  of  her  family  and  ancestors,  one  of 
whom,  Christian  Workizer,  was  an  accomplished  German  officer  under  General 
Wolfe  at  the  siege  of  Quebec.  A  brother,  Joseph  E.  Thropp,  an  impressive 
reasoner  and  polished  speaker,  owns  the  iron-works  at  Everett  and  is  married 
to  the  eldest  daughter  of  the  late  Colonel  Thomas  A.  Scott,  president  of  the 
Pennsylvania  railroad,  whose  master-mind  moulded  the  mightiest  railway 
system  the  world  has  ever  known.  Miss  Amelia  Thropp,  whose  "Brazil 
Papers,"  poems,  stories  and  "Scenes  in  Our  Village"  have  been  highly  com- 
mended and  extensively  copied,  lives  with  her  widowed  sister,  employing  her 
leisure  in  writing  for  the  press.  Mrs.  George  Porter,  the  third  sister  and  a 
resident  of  Oil  City,  began  to  write  poetry  at  ten  and  at  fourteen  saw  her  first 
prose-sketch — "  Winfred  Wayne" — in  the  Knickerbocker  Magazine.  At  times 
she  writes  for  Cleveland,  Norristown,  Oil  City  and  Philadelphia  journals. 


THE    LITERARY    GUILD. 


303 


Her  ballads  have  been  especially  ad- 
mired. The  Thropp  sisters  are  es- 
teemed highly  for  their  poetical  tal- 
ents, their  Christian  character  and 
their  sweet  unselfishness.  ' '  The  Wild 
Flowers  of  Valley  Forge,"  by  Mrs. 
Cone,  will  give  an  idea  of  their  ex- 
quisite work  : 

Blest  be  the  flowers  that  freely  blow 

In  this  neglected  spot, 
Anemone  with  leaves  of  snow 

And  blue  Forget-me-not. 
God's  laurels  weave  their  classic  wreath, 

Their  pale  pink  blossoms  wave 
O'er  lowly  mounds,  where  rest  beneath 
Our  martyrs  in  their  grave. 

in  white  and  gold  the  daisies  shine 

All  o'er  encampment  hiil ; 
There  wild-rose  and  the  Columbine 

Lift  glistening  banners  still. 
Here  plumy  ferns,  an  emerald  fringe, 

Adorn  our  stream's  bright  way  ; 
And  soft  grass  whence  the  violet  springs, 

With  fragrant  flowers  of  May. 

Oh,  there's  a  spell  around  these  blooms 

Owned  by  no  rarer  flowers  ; 
They  blossomed  on  our  so'.diers'  tombs 

And  they  shall  bloom  on  ours. 
To  us,  as  to  our  sires,  their  tone 

Breathes  forth  the  same  glad  strain, 
"We  spring  to  life  when  winter's  gone. 

And  ye  shall  rise  again." 

Uncultured  'round  our  path  they  grow, 

Smile  up  before  our  tread 
To  cheer,  as  they  did  long  ago 

Our  noble-hearted  dead. 
Arbutus  in  the  sheltering  wood 

Sighs  "  Here  he  came  to  pray," 
And  Pansies  whisper,  "  Thus  we  stood 

When  heroes  passed  away." 

Thus  every  wild-flower's  simple  leaf 

Breathes  in  my  native  vale, 
To  conscious  hearts,  some  record  brief, 

Some  true  and  touching  tale. 
Wealth's  gay  parterre  in  glory  stands  : — 

I  own  their  foreign  claims, 
Those  gorgeous  flowers  from  other  lands, 

Rare  plants  with  wondrous  names. 

Ye  blossomed  in  our  martyr's  field 

Beneath  the  warm  spring's  sun, 
Sprung  from  the  turf  where  lowly  kneelec 

Our  matchless  Washington. 
Ye  in  our  childhood's  garden  grew, 

Our  sainted  mother's  bowers  ; 
My  grateful  heart  beats  high  to  you, 

My  own  wild  valley  flowers  ! 
The  collapse  of  the  Daily  Time. 
terminated  experimental  dailies  in  Oi 


304  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

City.  Mr.  Gilfillan,  F.  W.  Mitchell,  P.  R.  Gray  and  other  stockholders  sold  the 
good-will  and  smoking  ruins  to  Sheriff  H.  H.  Herpst,  who  revived  the  weekly 
with  Dr.  Davis  at  the  bellows.  It  was  rather  weakly,  notwithstanding  the  doc- 
tor's excellent  doses  of  leaded  pellets.  Advertisers  seemed  a  trifle  shy  and  col- 
umns of  blank  space,  by  no  means  nutritious  pabulum,  were  not  infrequent. 
Everybody  favored  a  newer,  grander,  bolder  stride  forward.  The  borough  and 
suburbs  had  attained  the  dignity  of  a  city,  an  oil-exchange  had  been  organized, 
railroads  were  coming  in  and  a  paper  of  metropolitan  scope  was  urgently  de- 
manded. Usually  men  adapted  to  a  particular  niche  turn  up  and  the  traditional 
"long-felt  want"  is  not  likely  to  remain  unfilled.  Such  was  the  case  in  this 
instance. 

Coleman  E.  Bishop  and  W.  H.  Longwell  landed  in  Oil  City  one  summer 
afternoon  to  "view  the  landscape  o'er,"  as  good  Dr.  Watts  phrased  it.  They 
had  heard  the  Macedonian  cry  and  decided  to  size  up  the  situation.  Bishop 
achieved  greatness  at  Jamestown,  N.  Y.,  where  he  edited  the  Journal,  by  at- 
tacking Commander  Gushing,  the  naval  officer  who  sank  the  Confederate  ram 
Merrimac,  and  kicking  him  down  stairs  when  the  indignant  marine  invaded  the 
sanctum  to  "  horsewhip  the  editor  and  pitch  him  out  of  the  window."  Long- 
well,  a  brave  soldier  and  sharp  man  of  affairs,  had  learned  the  ropes  at  Pithole 
and  Petroleum  Centre.  A  deal  with  Mr.  Herpst  was  soon  closed,  needed  ma- 
terial was  ordered  and  a  frame  building  on  Seneca  street  rented.  Herpst  kept 
an  interest  as  a  silent  partner. 

The  Oil  City  Derrick,  ordained  to  become  ' '  the  organ  of  oil, ' '  was  born 
on  the  thirteenth  of  September,  1871.  The  name  was  an  inspiration,  adopted 
at  the  last  moment  instead  of  the  hackneyed  Times,  which  had  been  agreed 
upon  by  the  three  proprietors.  To  embody  the  most  conspicuous  emblem  of 
the  petroleum-business  in  the  head  of  a  newspaper  designed  to  represent  the 
oil-trade  suggested  itself  to  the  alert  editor  a  few  hours  before  the  forms  were 
ready  for  the  press.  The  venture  was  a  go  from  the  start.  People  were  wakened 
from  their  slumber  by  strong-lunged  newsboys  shouting,  "Derrick,  ere's  yer 
Derrick,  Derrick  !"  Their  first  impulse  was  to  wonder  if  they  had  left  any  der- 
ricks out  all  night,  exposed  to  thieves  and  marauders,  and  somebody  was  bring- 
ing them  home.  The  new  sheet  was  scanned  eagerly.  It  had  departments  of 
"Spray,"  "Lying  Around  Loose"  and  "Pick-ups,"  teeming  with  catchy, 
piquant,  invigorating  items.  Its  advocacy  of  the  producers'  cause  boomed  the 
paper  tremendously.  A  bitter  fight  with  the  Allegheny  Valley  Railroad  in- 
creased its  circulation  and  prestige.  Bishop's  individuality  permeated  every 
page  and  column.  He  had  the  sand  to  continue  the  railroad  war,  but  a  threat 
to  remove  the  shops  from  Oil  City  weakened  his  partners  and  they  bought  him 
out  in  1873.  From  the  "Hub  of  Oildom"  he  went  to  Buffalo  to  edit  the  Express. 
Thence  he  went  to  Bradford,  embarked  in  oil-operations  on  Kendall  Creek  and 
enlivened  the  Chautauqua  Herald,  Rev.  Theodore  Flood's  bonanza,  one  sum- 
mer. Invited  to  New  York  in  1880,  he  managed  the  Merchants'  Review  and 
edited  Judge  until  it  changed  owners  in  1885.  Leaving  the  metropolis,he  wan- 
dered to  Dakota  and  freshened  the  Rapid  City  Republican.  Returning  east.he 
furnished  Washington  correspondence  to  various  papers.  For  years  he  has 
been  disabled  by  locomotor-ataxia.  Mrs.  Bishop  is  a  popular  teacher  of  the 
Delsarte  system  and  has  published  a  book  on  the  subject.  Miss  Bishop  is  a 
talented  lecturer.  It  is  not  disparaging  the  galaxy  of  oil-region  journalists  to 
say  that  C.  E.  Bishop,  the  gamest,  keenest,  raciest  member  of  the  fraternity, 
might  be  termed  a  bishop  in  the  congregation  of  men  who  have  shaped  public 


THE  LITERARY  GUILD.  305 

opinion  in  the  domain  of  grease.  No  matter  how  difficult  or  delicate  the  theme, 
from  pre-natal  influence  to  monopoly,  from  heredity  to  fishing,  from  biology  to 
pumpkins,  he  treated  it  tersely  and  charmingly.  A  thoroughbred  from  top  to 
toe,  his  was  a  Damascus  blade  and  "  none  but  himself  can  be  his  parallel." 

Captain  Longwell — the  title  was  awarded  for  gallantry  in  many  a  hard  battle 
— attended  to  the  business-end  with  decided  success.  Buying  Herpst's  claim, 
he  conducted  the  whole  concern  four  years  and  sold  out  at  a  steep  figure  in 
1877.  He  raked  in  wealth  producing  and  speculating,  quitting  well-heeled  finan- 
cially. A  native  of  Adams  county,  he  was  educated  at  Gettysburg  and  learned 
printing  in  the  office  of  the  Chambersburg  Repository  and  Wliig,  then  published 
by  Col.  Alexander  K.  McClure,  now  the  world-famed  editor  of  the  Philadelphia 
Times.  His  mother  was  a  descendant  of  James  Wilson,  a  signer  of  the  Decla- 
ration of  Independence.  Herpst  opened  a  wall-paper  store,  removed  later  to 
Jamestown  and  died  there  in  1884.  Square,  honest  and  "straight  as  a  string," 
he  merited  the  regard  of  his  fellows.  Charles  H.  Morse,  the  first  city-editor, 
had  the  snap  to  corral  news  at  sight  and  present  it  toothsomely.  Who  that 
knew  him  in  his  beardless  youth  imagined  Charley  would  "get  religion"  and 
adorn  the  pulpit  ?  He  entered  the  ministry  and  for  over  twenty  years  has  been 
pastor  of  a  Baptist  church  at  Mercer.  Were  he  to  serve  up  to  his  hearers  some 
of  the  funny  experiences  he  encountered  as  a  reporter,  he  would  discount 
Talmage's  recitals  of  the  slums  and  Dr.  Parkhurst's  leap-frog  exploits  in  the 
Tenderloin  !  Archie  Frazer  wrote  the  market-report,  ten  or  twelve  lines  at  first 
and  a  plump  column  or  more  ultimately.  In  November  of  1872  it  was  my  luck 
to  engage  with  the  Derrick  and  inaugurate  the  role  of  traveling  correspondent. 
Venango  and  Warren,  with  Clarion,  Armstrong  and  Butler  budding  into  prom- 
inence, covered  the  oil-fields.  Bradford  loomed  up  in  the  autumn  of  1875, 
extending  my  mission  from  the  northern  line  of  McKean  county  to  the  southern 
boundary'  of  Butler  before  the  close  of  the  term  of  five  years.  These  breezy 
days  were  crowded  with  bustle  and  excitement,  adventure  and  incident.  Over 
the  signature  of  "  J.  J.  M." — possibly  remembered  by  old-timers—fate  appointed 
me  to  chronicle  a  multitude  of  events  that  played  an  important  part  in  petroleum- 
annals.  The  system  of  "monthly  reports"  was  arranged  methodically,  the 
producing  sections  were  visited  regularly  and  my  acquaintance  embraced  every 
oil  farm  and  nearly  every  oil-operator  in  the  rushing,  hustling,  get-up-and-get 
world  of  petroleum. 

Orion  Clemens,  a  brother  of  "  Mark  Twain,"  worked  on  the  Derrick  a  few 
weeks  in  1873.  The  exact  opposite  of  "Mark,"  his  forte  was  the  pathetic.  He 
could  write  up  the  death  of  an  insect  or  a  reptile  so  feelingly  that  sensitive  folks 
would  shed  gallons  of  tears  in  the  wood-shed  over  the  harrowing  details.  He 
fairly  reveled  in  the  gloomy,  somber,  tragic  element  of  life.  Daily  contributions 
taxed  him  too  severely,  as  he  composed  slowly,  and  his  resignation  caused  no 
surprise.  Frank  H.  Taylor,  a  young  graduate  from  the  Tidioute  Journal,  suc- 
ceeded Bishop,  vacating  the  chair  to  undertake  the  field-work.  Frank  can  afford 
to  "point  with  pride"  to  his  career  as  editor  and  compiler  of  statistics.  His 
"Handbook"  is  an  unquestioned  authority  on  petroleum.  Once  he  resigned 
to  float  the  Call,  a  sprightly  Sunday  folio,  which  glistened  from  the  spring  of 
1877  to  October  of  1878.  "Puts  and  Calls,"  the  humorous  column,  had  to 
answer  for  bursting  off  tons  of  vest-buttons.  Taylor  acquired  money  and  fame 
as  a  journalist,  was  president  of  select-council,  called  the  turn  as  a  producer 
and  saved  a  snug  competence.  During  the  last  Congress  he  was  Hon.  J.  C. 
Sibley's  secretary,  a  position  demanding  remarkable  tact  and  industry-.  Now 


3o6 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


he  is  leasing  lands,  drilling  wells  and  looking  after  the  oil-properties  of  Sibley 
&  Co.  in  Indiana.  Oil  City  is  his  home  and  he  is  as  busy  as  a  boy  clubbing 
chestnuts. 

Robert  W.  Criswell,  who  had  forged  to  the  front  by  his  mirth-provoking 
sketches,  followed  Taylor  as  editor  in  1877.  He  fertilized  the  "Stray-sand," 
travestied  Shakespeare  and  developed  "  Grandfather  Lickshingle,"  giving  the 
Derrick  national  celebrity.  When  the  shuffle  occurred  in  1877  he  stepped  down 
and  went  to  the  Cincinnati  Enquirer.  Major  McClintock,  W.  J.  McCullagh  and 
Frank  \V.  Bowen  were  on  deck  about  the  same  time.  The  Major,  now  oil 


inspector,  handled  the  market-report  and  press-dispatches.  McCullagh  held 
the  field-department  up  to  its  elevated  standard  and  Bowen  ground  out  first- 
class  local  and  editorial.  Col.  Edward  Stuck,  who  had  come  from  York  in 
1879  to  supervise  the  Bradford  Era,  ran  the  machine  in  1880-2,  displaying  much 
ability  in  the  face  of  manifold  hindrances.  William  Brough  and  J.  M.  Bonham 
of  Franklin,  gentlemen  of  high  literary  attainments,  wishing  to  have  a  paper  of 
their  own,  induced  Mr.  Stuck  to  leave  Bradford,  with  a  view  to  resurrect  the 
Sunday  Call.  The  project  was  not  carried  out  and  he  assumed  charge  of  the 
Derrick,  with  gratifying  results.  His  training  was  acquired  on  the  York  Demo- 
cratic Press,  his  father's  weekly,  which  Col.  Stuck  now  conducts  in  connection 
with  the  Daily  Age,  established  by  him  after  his  sojourn  in  Oil  City.  He  was 
appointed  State  Librarian  during  Governor  Pattison's  first  term  and  elected 
Register  of  Wills  of  York  county  in  1889,  in  recognition  of  his  excellent  journal- 


THE  LITERARY  GUILD.  307 

istic  services.  William  H.  Siviter,  straight  from  college,  was  next  in  order. 
His  polished,  scholarly  writings  were  relished  by  educated  people.  He  para- 
graphed for  the  Pittsburg  Chronicle-  Telegraph  and  for  some  years  has  contrib- 
uted to  the  comic  weeklies.  He  is  responsible  for  the  "High-School  Girl." 
with  her  Bostonese  flavor  and  highfalutin  speech.  McCullagh  became  an 
operator  in  the  Bradford  region,  drilled  extensively  in  Ohio,  laid  by  considerable 
boodle  and  chose  Toledo  as  his  residence.  Robert  Simpson,  who  began  as 
"printer's  devil"  in  1872,  remained  with  the  Derrick  as  a  writer  until  the 
Blizzard  blew  into  town,  excepting  brief  respites  at  Emlenton  and  Bradford. 

P.  C.  Boyle,  whose  dash  and  skill  and  tireless  energy  had  advanced  him 
steadily,  leased  the  establishment  in  1885.  He  had  the  vigor  and  backbone 
needed  to  bring  the  paper  back  to  its  pristine  strength.  By  turns  a  roustabout 
at  Pithole  in  1866,  a  driller,  a  scout,  a  reporter,  a  publisher  and  an  editor,  his 
experience  in  the  oil-country  was  extensive  and  invaluable.  He  published  the 
Laborer's  Voice  at  Martinsburg  in  1877-8,  reported  for  the  Derrick  and  Titus- 
ville  Herald  m  1879,  for  the  Petroleum  World  in  1880  and  the  Olean  Herald  in 
1881,  conducted  the  Richburg  Echo  in  1881-2  and  scouted  all  through  the  devel- 
opments at  Cherry  Grove,  Macksburg  and  Thorn  Creek  in  1882-5.  George 
Dillingham,  who  had  "a  nose  for  news,"  and  J.  N.  Perrine,  gilt-edged  and 
yard-wide  in  the  counting-room,  assisted  Mr.  Boyle  in  tuning  the  paper  up  to 
high  G.  The  outside  fields,  daily  growing  in  number  and  importance,  were  put 
in  charge  of  Homer  McClintock,  the  real  Homer  of  oil-reporters.  He  fattens 
on  timely  paragraphs,  scents  live  items  in  the  air  and  lets  no  juicy  happening 
escape.  The  force  was  augmented  as  occasion  arose,  type-setting  machines  and 
fast  presses  were  added,  the  job-office  was  supplied  with  the  latest  and  best 
materials  and  the  Derrick  is  to-day  one  of  the  finest,  brightest,  smartest  news- 
papers that  ever  edified  a  community,  It  is  owned  by  the  Derrick  Publishing 
Company,  of  which  Mr.  Boyle  is  president  and  H.  McClintock,  J.  N.  Perrine 
and  Alfred  L.  Snell  are  the  active  members.  Mr.  Boyle  also  managed  the 
Toledo  Commercial  and  the  Bradford  Era.  He  is  "the  Dean  of  the  Fourth 
Estate"  by  virtue  of  eminent  services  and  seniority.  Like  the  lightning,  he 
never  needs  strike  twice  in  the  same  spot,  because  the  job  is  finished  at  a  single 
lick  when  he  goes  "loaded  for  b'ar." 

John  B.  Smithman,  a  wealthy  operator,  to  whom  Oil  City  owes  its  street- 
railways  and  a  bridge  spanning  the  Allegheny,  in  1880  equipped  the  Telegraph, 
an  evening  sunflower,  with  Philip  C.  Welch  at  its  head.  Isaac  N.  Pratt,  later 
an  advance-agent  for  Ezra  Kendall,  had  a  finger  in  the  pie.  The  paper  was  as 
fetching  as  a  rural  maiden  in  a  brand-new  calico  gown,  but  two  dailies  were  too 
rich  for  the  blood  of  the  population  and  the  Telegraph  wilted  at  a  tender  age. 
Welch  tapped  a  vein  of  rich  humor  in  the  Philadelphia  Call  by  originating 
"Accidentally  Overheard,"  a  feature  that  captured  the  bakery.  It  bubbled 
with  actual  wit,  fragrant  as  sweet  clover  and  wholesome  as  morning  dew,  not 
revamped  and  twisted  and  warmed  over.  Charles  A.  Dana,  no  mean  judge  of 
literary  merit,  recognized  the  value  of  the  Welch  rarebits  and  secured  them  for 
the  New  York  Sun  at  a  fixed  rate  far  each,  big  or  little,  long  or  short,  large  or 
small.  Anon  Dana  offered  him  a  salary  few  bank-presidents  would  refuse  and 
Welch  moved  to  Gotham.  The  Sun  that  "shines  for  all"  fairly  glittered  and 
dazzled.  Welch' s  ' '  Tailor-Made  Girl ' '  hit  the  popular  taste  and  was  published 
in  elegant  form  by  the  Scribners.  Disease  preyed  upon  him,  compelling  an 
operation  similar  to  General  Grant's.  Half  the  tongue  was  cut  out,  affecting  his 
utterance  seriously.  Weeks  and  months  of  patient  suffering  ended  at  last  in 


3o8 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


release  from  earthly  pain  and  sorrow.  Mrs.  Welch,  a  noble  helpmeet,  lives  in 
Brooklyn  and  is  to  be  credited  with  the  clever,  dainty  "From  Her  Point  of  View," 
which  irradiates  the  Sunday  issues  of  the  New  York  Times.  Upon  the  grave 
of  Philip  C.  Welch  old  friends  would  lay  a  wreath  and  drop  a  sympathetic  tear. 

"Alas,  Poor  Yorick! 
I  knew  him,  Horatio; 
A  fellow  of  infinite  jest, 
Of  most  excellent  fancy." 

Frank  W.  Bowen,  a  diamond  of  the  first  water,  H.  G.  McKnight,  the  light- 
ning type-slinger,  and  B.  F.  Gates,  a  dandy  printer,  swarmed  from  the  Derrick 
hive  and  raised  the  wind  to  blow  an  evening  Blizzard  \n  1882.  They  bought 
the  Telegraph  stuff  and  the  Richburg  Echo  press,  had  brains  and  pluck  in 
abundance  and  went  in  to  win.  The  significant  motto — "  It  blows  on  whom  it 
pleases  and  for  others'  snuff  ne'er  sneezes  " — attested  the  independence  of  the 


free-playing  zephyr.  Gentle  as  the  summer  breezes  when  dealing  with  the  good, 
the  true  and  the  beautiful,  it  swept  everything  before  it  when  a  wrong  was  to  be 
righted,  a  sleek  rascal  unmasked  or  a  monopoly  toppled  over.  Bowen's  "Little 
Blizzards"  had  a  laugh  in  every  line.  If  they  stung  transgressors  by  their  sharp 
thrusts,  the  author  didn't  lie  awake  nights  trying  to  load  up  with  mean  things. 
His  humor  was  spontaneous  and  easy  as  rolling  off  a  log.  Now  his  friends  and 
admirers — their  name  is  Legion — propose  to  waft  him  into  the  Legislature,  a  clear 
case  of  the  office  seeking  the  man.  It  goes  without  saying  that  the  Blizzard 
was  an  instant  success.  It  was  no  fault  of  the  fond  parents  that  they  were  built 
that  way  and  couldn't  compel  people  not  to  want  their  exhilarating  paper. 
Place  its  neat  make-up  to  McKnight's  account.  Gates  flocked  by  himself  to 
usher  in  the  Venango  Democrat,  which  the  gods  loved  so  well  that  it  passed 
through  the  golden  gates  in  four  weeks.  Robert  Simpson,  jocularly  styled  its 
"  horse  editor,"  was  a  Blizzard  trump-card  until  1886.  He  then  filled  consec- 
utive engagements  as  exchange-editor,  news-editor,  night-editor,  assistant  man- 
aging-editor and  legislative  correspondent  of  the  Pittsburg  Dispatch.  Again  he 


THE  LITERARY  GUILD.  309 

edited  the  Derrick  nine  months  in  1889.  Returning  to  Pittsburg  as  political- 
reporter  of  the  Commercial- Gazette,  he  was  promoted  to  legislative-corre- 
spondent and  lastly  to  managing-editor,  a  position  of  much  responsibility. 
Simpson  is  among  the  best  all-' round  newspaper  men  in  Pennsylvania.  E.  A. 
Bradshaw,  editor  of  the  Jamestown  Journal,  also  held  down  a  stool  and  manu- 
factured crisp  copy  in  the  Blizzard  sanctum. 

The  Reno  Times,  an  eight-column  folio  that  ranked  with  the  foremost 
weeklies  in  the  State,  was  started  in  1865  and  expired  in  May  of  1866.  A  de- 
partment was  assigned  each  kind  of  news,  the  matter  was  classified  and  set  in 
minion  and  nonpareil,  oil-operations  were  noted  fully  and  local  affairs  received 
due  attention.  Samuel  B.  Page,  the  editor,  understood  how  to  glean  from  ex- 
changes and  correspondence.  George  E.  Beardsley,  whose  parish  lay  along  Oil 
Creek,  about  Pithole  and  the  Allegheny  River  from  Franklin  to  Tidioute,  a 
section  thirty  miles  by  seventy,  managed  the  oil-columns  admirably.  E.  W. 
Mercer  kept  the  books,  collected  the  bills  and  had  general  supervision.  W.  C. 
Plumer,  J.  Diffenbach  and  Edward  Fairchilds  stuck  type  and  the  average 
edition  exceeded  ten-thousand  copies. 

Pithole,  the  most  kaleidoscopic  oil-town  that  ever  stranded  human  lives  and 
bank-accounts,  gave  birth  to  the  Daily  Record  en  the  twenty-fifth  of  September, 
1865.  It  was  a  five-column  folio,  crammed  with  news  piping-hot  and  sold  at  five 
cents  a  copy,  or  thirty  cents  a  week.  Morton,  Spare  &  Co.  were  the  publishers. 
Col.  L.  M.  Morton — he  earned  his  shoulder-straps  in  the  civil  war — edited  the 
Record,  winning  laurels  by  his  wise  discernment.  He  was  a  manly  character, 
incapable  of  deceit,  a  brilliant  writer  and  conversationalist,  the  soul  of  honor 
and  courtesy,  "a  knight  without  fear  and  without  reproach."  He  served  as 
postmaster  at  Milton  and  spent  his  closing  years  as 
night-editor  of  the  Bradford  Era,  dying  at  his  post, 
loved  and  esteemed  by  thousands  of  friends.  W.  H. 
Longwell,  another  brave  defender  of  the  Union, 
bought  out  Spare  in  May,  1866.  Charles  C.  Wicker 
and  W.  C.  Plumer  were  taken  into  the  firm  shortly 
after.  In  May  of  1868,  Pithole  having  crawled  into 
a  hole,  Longwell  changed  the  base  of  operations  to 
Petroleum  Centre,  then  at  the  zenith  of  its  meteoric 
flight.  He  sold  the  paper  in  1871  to  Wicker,  who 
held  on  until  formidable  rivals  in  Oil  City  and  Titus- 
ville  forced  the  Record  to  quit.  Generous  to  a  fault 
and  faithful  to  those  who  shared  his  confidence, 

Wicker  left  the  decaying  town  in  1873,  was  foreman  of  the  Titusville  Courier, 
worked  as  a  compositor  at  Bradford  and  died  there  years  ago.  He  was  never 
satisfied  to  accept  ill-luck  without  emphatic  dissent.  He  always  wore  a  blue- 
flannel  shirt,  a  fashion  he  adopted  in  the  army,  and  was  eccentric  in  attire. 

Charles  C.  Leonard  was  "a  bright,  particular  star"  in  the  days  of  the  Pithole 
Record,  to  which,  over  the  signature  of  "Crocus,"  he  contributed  side-splitting 
sketches  of  ludicrous  phases  of  oil-region  life.  These  felicitous  word-paintings, 
with  additions  and  revisions,  he  published  in  a  volume  that  had  a  prodigious  sale. 
He  was  an  Ohioan,  born  in  1845,  and  a  soldier  at  sixteen.  Arriving  at  Pithole 
in  1865,  he  saw  that  wonderful  place  grow  from  a  dozen  shanties  to  a  city  of  fif- 
teen-thousand at  a  pace  distancing  Jonah's  gourd  or  Jack-the-Giant-Killer's 
bean-stalk.  In  the  fall  of  1867  he  came  to  theTitusville  Herald,  remaining  five 
years.  After  short  terms  with  the  Cleveland  Leader  and  St.  Louis  Globe,  he 
returned  to  Titusville  to  write  for  the  Evening  Press.  He  went  back  to  St. 


3io 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


Louis  and  died  at  Cleveland  on  the  twelfth  of  March,  1874,  wounds  received  in 
battle  hastening  his  demise.    He  was  a  natural  wit,  whose  keen  jokes  had  the 
aroma  of  Attic  salt.      Mrs.  Leonard  removed  to  Detroit,  her  home  at  present. 
One  of  Charlie's  favorite  creations  was  "The  Sheet-Iron  Cat,"  written  for  the 
Cleveland  Leader.      It  passed  the  rounds  of 
the  newspapers  and  was  printed  in  the  Scien- 
tific American.    The  sell  took  immensely,  lots 
of  persons  sending  letters  asking  the  cost  of 
the  "cats"  and  where  they  could  be  procured  ! 
The  article,  which  will  revive  many  a  pleasant 
_  memory  of  "  auld  lang  syne,  "follows : 

"  A  young  mechanic  in  this  city,  whose  friends  and 
acquaintances  have  heretofore  supposed  there  was  "noth- 
ing to  him,"  has  at  iast  achieved  a  triumph  that  will 
place  him  at  once  among  the  noblest  benefactors  of  man- 
kind. His  name  will  be  handed  down  to  posterity  with 
those  of  the  inventors  of  the  "steam  man,"  the  patent 
churn  and  other  contrivances  of  a  labor-saving  or  com- 
fort-inducing character.  His  invention.which  occurred 
to  him  when  trying  to  sleep  at  night  in  the  sky-parlor  oi 
his  cheap  boarding-house,  with  the  felinedemonsof  mid- 
CHARLES  c.  LEONARD.  night  clattering  over  the  roof  outside,  is  nothing  more 

than  a  patent  sheet-iron  cat  with  cylindrical  attachmenti 

steel-claws  and  teeth,  the  whole  arrangement  being  covered  with  cat-skins,  which  give  it  a  natural 
appearance  and  preserve  the  clock-work  and  intricate  machinery  with  which  the  old  thing  is 
made  to  work.  Among  the  other  peculiarities  of  this  ingenious  invention  are  the  tail  and  voice. 
The  former  is  hollow  and  supplied  by  a  bellows  (concealed  within  the  body)  with  compressed  air 
at  momentary  intervals,  which  causes  the  appendage  to  be  elevated  and  distended  to  three  times 
its  natural  size,  giving  to  the  metallic  cat  a  most  warlike  and  belligerent  appearance.  By  the  aid 
of  the  same  bellows  and  a  tremolo-stop  arrangement,  the  cat  is  made  to  emit  the  most  fearful 
caterwauls  and  "spitting"  that  ever  awakened  a  baby,  made  the  head  of  the  family  swear  in  his 
dreams,  or  caused  a  shower  of  boots,  washbowls  and  other  missiles  of  midnight  wrath  to  cleave 
the  sky. 

"  Such  is  the  invention.  The  method  of  using  and  the  result  is  as  follows :  Winding  up  the 
patent  Thomas-cat,  the  owner  adjusts  him  upon  the  house-top  or  in  the  back-yard  and  awaits 
events.  Soon  is  heard  the  tocsin  of  cat-like  war  in  the  shape  of  every  known  sound  that  the 
tribe  are  capable  of  producing,  only  in  a  key  much  louder  than  any  live  cat  could  perform  in. 
Every  cat  within  a  circle  of  a  half-mile  hears  the  familiar  sounds  and  accepts  the  challenge,  fre- 
quently fifty  or  one  hundred  appearing  simultaneously  upon  the  battle-ground,  ready  to  buckle  in. 
The  swelling  tail  invites  combat  and  they  attack  old  "  Ironsides,"  who  no  sooner  feels  the 
weight  of  a  paw  upon  his  hide  than  a  spring  is  touched  off,  his  paws  revolve  in  all  directions 
with  lightning  rapidity  and  the  adversaries  within  six  feet  of  him  are  torn  to  shreds!  Fresh 
battalions  come  to  the  scratch  only  to  meet  a  like  fate,  and  in  the  morning  several  bushels  of 
hair,  fiddle-strings  and  toe-nails  is  all  that  are  seen,  while  the  owner  proceeds  to  wind  the  iron 
cat  up  and  set  him  again. 

"  But  a  few  pleasant  evenings  are  needed  to  clean  out  a  common-sized  country  town  of  its 


sleep-disturbers.  We  understand  the  inv 
council  to  depopulate  the  city  of  cats  fo 
invention  or  article  unless  we  know  that 
we  have  not  been  so  explicit  in  our  desc 
good  one,  and  we  hope  to  see  every  house 


ntor  will  make  a  proposition  next  week  to  the  common 
a  moderate  sum.  We  do  not  intend  to  endorse  any 
t  will  perform  ail  that  it  is  claimed  to  do,  and  therefore 
iption  as  we  might  have  been;  but  the  principle  is  a 
n  the  city  surmounted  with  a  sheet-iron  cat  as  soon  as 


they  are  offered  for  sale,  which  will  be  about  April  the  first,  the  inventor  and  patentee  informs  us." 
J.  H.  Bowman  and  Richard  Linn  sent  forth  the  Petroleum  Monthly  at  Oil 
City  in  October,  1870.  Their  purpose  was  to  treat  the  oil  industry  from  a  scientific 
stand  and  present  statistics  and  biographies  in  magazine  style.  The  Monthly, 
which  lasted  a  year,  was  ably  edited  and  supplied  matter  of  permanent  value. 
Bowman,  a  fascinating  writer  and  agreeable  companion,  went  westward  and  the 
snows  of  twenty  winters  have  drifted  over  his  grave.  Linn  aided  in  compiling  a 
history  of  petroleum,  spent  some  years  in  the  east  and  meandered  to  Australia. 


THE  LITERARY  GUILD. 


JAMES  TYSON. 


Pleasantville evolved  the  Evening  Nezus'm.  1869  and  the  semi-monthly  Commer- 
cial-Record in  1887,  both  of  which  sought  "the  dark  realms  of  everlasting 
shade,"  to  keep  company  with  J.  L.  Rohr' s  Cooperstown  News,  Tom  Whitaker's 
Catling  Gun,  the  Oil  City  Critic,  the  Franklin 
Oil  Region,  the  Petroleum  Centre  Era,  and  a 
score  of  unwept  sacrifices  on  the  altar  of  Ve- 
nango  journalism.  James  Tyson,  a  hardware 
merchant  at  Rouseville,  in  1872  issued  the  Penn- 
sylvanian,  a  superior  weekly,  which  subsided 
with  the  waning  town.  Wesley  Chambers,  the 
ardent  greenbacker  and  fortunate  producer, 
was  a  liberal  contributor  to  its  well-edited 
pages.  Mr.  Tyson  migrated  to  California,  liv- 
ing in  San  Francisco  until  last  year,  when  he 
located  in  Philadelphia.  At  the  age  of  seventy- 
eight  his  faculties  are  unimpaired  and  he  stands 
erect.  He  is  an  earnest  member  of  the  Penn- 
sylvania Historical  Society  and  compiler  of  a 
"  Life  of  Washington  and  the  Signers  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence."  This  timely 
and  interesting  work,  published  in  two  handsome  volumes  in  1895,  is  dedicated 
to  the  public  schools  of  the  nation.  Its  instructive  narratives  are  designed  to 
inculcate  lessons  of  patriotism  and  duty  to  the  country.  As  an  embodiment  of 
facts,  collated  with  extreme  care  and  presented  attractively,  it  serves  a  laudable 
purpose  and  fitly  crowns  the  literary  labors  of  the  revered  author,  who  is  "  only 
waiting  till  the  shadows  are  a  little  longer  drawn." 

Titusville  enjoys  the  honor  of  harboring  the  first  petroleum  daily  that 
weathered  the  storm  and  stayed  in  the  ring.  June,  1865,  heralded  the  Morning 
Herald  of  W.  W.  and  Henry  C.  Bloss,  which  possessed  the  entire  field  and 
prospered  accordingly.  Col.  J.  H.  Cogswell  joined  the  partnership  in  1866. 
Major  W.  W.  Bloss,  the  elder  of  the  two  broth- 
ers, was  a  fluent  writer  and  made  his  mark  in 
journalism.  Mastering  the  details  of  "the  art 
preservative"  at  Rochester,  N.  Y.,  in  1857  he 
started  a  short-lived  journal  in  Kansas,  retraced 
his  footsteps  to  his  native  heath  in  1859,  was 
badly  wounded  at  Antietam,  beamed  upon  Ti- 
tusville in  the  spring  of  1865  and  bought  the 
Petroleum  Reporter,  a  moribund  weekly.  Quit- 
ting the  Herald  in  six  or  eight  years,  in  1873  he 
unfurled  the  banner  of  the  Evening  Press,  which 
did  not  live  to  cut  its  eye-teeth.  His  next  at- 
tempt, a  tasteful  weekly,  traveled  the  road  to 
oblivion.  The  Major  once  more  headed  for 
Kansas,  served  in  the  Legislature  and  wended 
his  way  to  Chicago,  whence  he  crossed  "to  the 
other  side"  in  the  prime  of  matured  manhood. 

Henry  C.  Bloss  stuck  to  the  Herald  "  through  evil  and  through  good  report," 
steadfastly  upholding  Titusville  and  dipping  his  eagle  feather  in  vitriol  when  nec- 
essary to  squelch  "  a  foeman  worthy  of  his  steel."  He  died — the  ranks  are  thin- 
ning out  sadly — three  years  ago  and  his  son,  upon  whom  the  mantle  of  his  father 


3i2  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

has  descended,  is  keeping  the  paper  in  the  van.  Col. Cogswell,  who  dropped  out 
to  accept  the  postmastership,  enacting  the  role  of  "  Nasby"  a  couple  of  terms, 
for  eight  or  ten  years  has  been  in  the  office  of  the  Tidewater  Pipe-Line  Company. 
Among  thefferatct force  were  C.  C.  Leonard,  John  Ponton  and  A.  E.  Fay.  Ponton 
turned  his  peculiar  talent  for  invention  to  electrical  pursuits  and  the  giddy  tele- 
phone. He  narrowly  missed  heading  off  Prof.  Bell  in  stumbling  upon  the  ' '  hello ' ' 
machine.  Fay  forsook  the  Heraldtor  the  Oil  City  Times,  did  a  turn  on  the  Titus- 
ville  Courier  and  hied  him  to  Arizona.  He  ran  a  mining-paper,  sat  in  the  Leg- 
islature, incubated  a  chicken-nursery  that  would  have  dumbfounded  Rutherford 
B.  Hayes,  farmed  a  bit  and  harvested  a  crop  of  shekels.  "  Art  "  was  a  nobby 
youth,  popular  with  "the  boys,"  liked  a  good  cigar  and  could  wing  a  meaty 
item  on  the  fly. 

The  Titusville  Courier,  sprung  in  1870  to  oppose  the  Herald,  was  edited  by 
Col.  J.  T.  Henry,  an  accomplished  journalist  from  Olean,  N.  Y.  In  1871  he 
bought  the  Sunday  News,  formerly  A.  L.  Chapman's  Long-Roll,  transferring  it 
in  1872  to  W.  W.  Bloss,  who  changed  it  to  the  Evening'  Press.  Col.  Henry  in 
1873  published  "Early  and  Later  History  of  Petroleum,"  a  large  volume,  re- 
plete with  information,  biographies  and  portraits.  The  author  speculated  profit- 
ably in  oil,  lived  at  Olean,  wrote  as  the  impulse  prompted  and  died  at  Jamestown 
in  May,  1878.  A  tear  is  due  the  memory  of  a  kingly,  chivalrous  man,  who 
reflected  luster  upon  his  profession  and  was  not  fully  appreciated  until  he  had 
reached  the  haven  of  eternal  rest. 

"  A  rarer  spirit  never 
Did  steer  humanity.  *  *  *  The  elements 
So  mix'd  in  him  that  nature  might  stand  up 
And  say  to  all  the  world,  'This  was  a  man !'  " 

Warren  C.  Plumer  guided  the  Courier  after  Col.  Henry's  retirement.  He 
was  no  tyro  in  slinging  his  quill.  Born  in  Maine  in  1835,  at  fourteen  he  entered 
a  printing-office,  ten  years  later  edited  a  paper,  served  three  years  in  the  war,  set 
type  on  the  Reno  Times  in  1865  and  was  editor-journeyman  of  the  Pithole  Record 
in  the  fall  of  1866.  His  "Dedbete"  contributions  were  a  striking  feature  of  the 
Record,  of  which  he  became  joint-owner  with  Longwell  and  Wicker  in  1867, 
when  Burgess  of  Pithole,  and  editor-in-chief  upon  its  removal  to  Petroleum  Centre 
in  1868.  Selling  out  in  1869,  Wicker  and  Plumer  lighted  a  Weekly  Star  at  Titus- 
ville that  quickly  set  to  rise  no  more.  Plumer  was  foreman  of  the  Oil  City  Times 
in  1870-1  and  connected  with  the  Tidioute  Journal  in  1872,  when  offered  the 
editorship  of  the  Courier.  Elected  to  the  Legislature  on  the  Democratic  ticket 
in  1874,  he  was  defeated  for  a  second  term  and  for  Congress  as  the  Green- 
backers'  candidate  in  1878.  For  a  time  his  political  notions  were  as  facile  as  his 
Faber  and  he  trained  with  whatever  party  chanced  to  have  a  vacancy.  From 
1879  to  1881  he  controlled  the  Meadville  Vindicator,  a  soft-money  weekly, 
winding  up  the  latter  year  on  the  Richburg  Echo.  In  Dakota,  h  is  next  stamping- 
ground,  he  edited  Republican  papers  at  Fargo,  Bismarck,  Aberdeen  and  Cassel- 
ton.  He  stumped  several  states  for  Blaine  with  an  eye  to  an  appointment  that 
would  have  swelled  his  bank-account  to  the  dimensions  of  a  plumber's.  "The 
Plumed  Knight"  failed  to  connect  and  the  plum  did  not  fall  into  the  lap  of  his 
eloquent  supporter.  President  Harrison  in  1891  appointed  him  Receiver  of  the 
Minot  District  Land-office,  North  Dakota,  which  he  resigned  last  year.  As  an 
orator  Col.  W.  C.  Plumer— they  call  him  "Colonel"  in  the  Dakotas— trots  in  the 
class  with  Robert  G.  Ingersoll,  Thomas  B.  Reed  and  William  McKinley  and  is 


THE  LITERARY  GUILD.  313 

denominated  the  "Silver  Tongue  of  the  North-west."  At  the  Republican 
National  Conventions  in  1884-8  he  was  unanimously  pronounced  the  finest  off- 
hand speaker  in  the  crowd.  He  is  a  finished  lecturer  and  unrivaled  story-teller, 
loves  the  choicest  books,  reads  the  Bible  diligently,  sticks  to  his  friends  and 
delights  to  recount  his  experiences  in  the  Pennsylvania  oil-regions. 

M.  N.  Allen,  an  original  stockholder  and  its  last  guardian,  purchased  the 
Courier  in  1874.  Even  his  acknowledged  skill  could  not  put  it  on  a  paying  basis 
and  the  paper,  unsurpassed  in  quality  and  appearance,  succumbed  to  the  inevi- 
table. Mr.  Allen  followed  Col.  Cogswell  as  postmaster,  a  proper  tribute  to  his 
rugged  Democracy.  Hale  and  hearty,  although  "over  the  summit  of  life,"  time 
has  dealt  kindly  with  him  and  his  deft  pen  has  lost  none  of  its  vigor.  He  is 
editing  the  Advance  Guard,  the  outgrowth  of  Roger  Sherman's  departed 
American  Citizen,  as  an  intellectual  pastime.  F.  A.  Tozer,  the  champion  ' '  fat 
take,"  five-feet-four-inches  high  and  four-feet-five-inches  around,  graduated  from 
the  Courier,  wafted  the  St.  Petersburg  Crude  Local  up  the  flume  and  was 
chief-cook  of  the  East-Brady  Times.  His  reports  were  newsy  and  palatable. 
He  travels  for  a  Pittsburg  house  and  would  pay  extra  fare  if  passengers  were 
carried  by  weight. 

Graham  &  Hoag's  Sunday  News-Letter  arose  from  the  tomb  of  the  Evening 
Press  and  the  Sunday  News.  J.  W.  Graham,  now  of  the  Herald,  piloted  the 
trim  vessel  skilfully.  A  stock-company  of  producers,  thinking  a  daily  in  the 
family  would  be  "a  thing  of  beauty"  and  "a  joy  forever,"  bought  the  News- 
Letter  and  the  Courier  equipment  in  1879, to  start  tne  Petroleum  World.  James 
M.  Place,  a  pusher  from  Pusherville,  had  solicited  the  bulk  of  the  subscriptions 
to  the  stock  and  was  entrusted  with  the  management.  R.  W.  Criswell  edited  the 
paper  splendidly.  Captain  M.  H.  Butler,  who  put  heaps  of  ginger  into  his  spicy 
effusions,  and  John  P.  Zane,  whose  hobby  was  finance — both  have  gone  the 
journey  that  has  no  return  trip — embellished  its  columns  with  thoughtful,  digest- 
ible brain-food.  Oil-news,  readable  locals,  dispatches,  jaunty  selections  and 
bang-up  neatness  were  never  lacking.  But  competition  was  fierce  and  the 
World  had  a  hard  row  to  hoe.  A  committee  of  stockholders  soon  took  charge. 
Place,  sleepless,  indomitable  and  with  the  energy  of  a  steam-hammer,  opened  a 
big  store  at  Richburg  and  drove  a  rattling  trade.  Setting  out  to  paddle  his  own 
canoe  as  a  Corry  newsboy  at  ten,  he  had  run  a  newsroom  at  Fagundas,  a  book- 
store and  the  post-office  at  St.  Petersburg,  a  branch  store  at  Edenburg,  large 
stores  at  Bradford  and  Bolivar  and  won  laurels  as  the  greatest  newspaper-circu- 
lator in  the  petroleum- diggings.  At  Harrisburg  and  Reading  he  swung  Sunday 
papers  and  the  Satttrday  Globe  in  New  York,  his  present  abode.  Samuel 
Williams,  unexcelled  as  a  sprightly  writer,  and  Hon.  George  E.  Mapes,  equally 
competent  in  the  Legislature  and  the  editorial  chair,  kept  the  World  booming 
until  '  'patience  ceased  to  be  a  virtue"  and  the  daily  ceased  to  be  a  sheet.  About 
half  the  material  went  to  the  Oil  City  Blizzard  and  the  rest  went  to  print  the 
S.mday  World  Frank  W.  Truesdell  had  determined  to  originate.  The  late  Hon. 
A.  N.  Perrin,  ex-Mayor  of  Titusville,  possessing  "ample  means  and  ample 
generosity, ' '  backed  the  project.  Truesdell  finished  his  trade  as  printer  in  Cleve- 
land and  worked  at  Youngstown  and  Franklin,  settling  at  Titusville  in  1880  to 
manage  the  World  jobbing-room.  He  was  a  young  man  of  fine  ability  and  scru- 
pulous integrity.  His  partnership  with  Perrin  ended  in  1887  by  his  pur- 
chase of  the  entire  business.  He  sold  a  half-interest  in  the  paper  in  1893  and 
death  claimed  him  in  October  of  1894.  Measured  by  his  thirty-seven  years, 
Frank  Willard  Truesdell's  life  was  short ;  measured  by  his  good  deeds,  his 


314 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


worthy  enterprises,  his  lofty  sentiments  and  kindly  acts,  it  was  longer  than  that 
of  many  who  pass  the  Psalmist's  three-score-and-ten.  Mrs.  Truesdell  and  her 
little  daughter  live  in  Titusville.  F.  F.  Murray,  associated  with  Walter  Izant 
and  W.  R.  Herbert  in  the  general  details,  edits  the  Sunday  World,  which  is  as 
frisky  as  a  spring-colt.  Born  at  Buffalo  in  1860,  Murray  was  reared  in  Yenango 
county,  whither  his  father  was  drawn  by  the  oil-excitement.  Correspondence 
for  local  papers  naturally  bore  him  into  the  journalistic  swim.  He  whooped  it 
up  six  years  for  the  Blizzard.  A  regular  hummer,  he  is  at  home  whether  flay- 


ing  monopolists,  taking  a  ruffian's  scalp,  praising  a  pretty  girl,  writing  a  tearful 
obituary,  dissecting  a  suspicious  job  or  reeling  off  a  natty  poem.  "The  Old 
Tramp-Printer,"  a  recent  effort,  is  a  fair  sample  of  his  quality  : 

"  Here's  a  rhyme  to  the  old  tramp-printer,  who  as  long  as  he  lives  will  roam, 
Whose  'card'  is  his  principal  treasure  and  where  night  overtakes  him  home  ; 
Whose  shoes  are  run  over  and  twisty,  whose  garments  are  shiny  and  thin, 
And  who  takes  a  bunk  in  the  basement  when  the  pressman  lets  him  in. 

"  It  is  true  there  are  some  of  the  trampers  that  only  the  Angel  of  Death, 
When  he  touches  them  with  his  sickle,  can  cure  of  the  'spirituous  breath'; 
That  some  by  their  fellow-trampers  are  shunned  as  unwholesome  scamps. 
And  that  some  are  just  aimless,  homeless,  restless,  typographical  tramps. 


THE  LITERARY  GUILD.  315 

"  But  the  most  of  them  surely  are  worthy  of  something  akin  to  praise,- 
And  have  drifted  down  to  the  present  out  of  wholesomer,  happier  days  ; 
And  when,  though  his  looks  be  as  seedy  as  ever  a  mortal  wore, 
Will  you  find  the  old  tramper  minus  his  marvelous  fund  of  lore? 

"  What  paper  hasn't  he  worked  on  ?    Whose  manuscript  hasn't  he  set  ? 
What  story  worthy  remembrance  was  he  ever  known  to  forget? 
What  topics  rise  for  discussion,  in  science,  letters  or  art, 
That  the  genuine  old  tramp-printer  cannot  grapple  and  play  his  part  ? 

"  It  is  true  you  will  sometimes  see  him  when  the  hue  that  adorns  his  nose 
Outrivals  the  crimson  flushes  which  the  peony  flaunts  at  the  rose  ; 
It  is  true  that  much  grime  he  gathers  in  the  course  of  each  trip  he  takes, 
Inasmuch  as  he  boards  all  freight-trains  between  the  Gulf  and  the  Lakes. 

"  Yet  his  knowledge  grows  more  abundant  than  many  much-titled  men's, 
Who  traveJL  as  scholarly  tourists  and  are  classed  with  the  upper-tens ; 
And  few  ar.e  the  contributions. these  scholarly  ones  have  penned 
That  the  seediest,  shabbiest  tramper  couldn't  readily  cut  and  mend. 

"  He  has  little  in  life  to  bind  him  to  one  place  more  than  the  rest, 
For  his  hopes  in  the  past  lie  buried  with  the  ones  that  he  loved  the  best ; 
He  has  little  to  hope  from  Fortune  and  has  little  to  fear  from  Fate, 
And  little  his  dreams  are  troubled  over  the  public's  love  or  hate. 

"  So  a  rhyme  to  the  old  tramp-printer — to  the  hopes  he  has  cherished  and  wept, 
To  the  loves  and  the  old  home-voices  that  still  in  his  heart  are  kept ; 
A  rhyme  to  the  old  tramp-printer,  whose  garments  are  shiny  and  thin, 
And  who  takes  a  bunk  in  the  basement  when  the  pressman  lets  him  in." 

Mr.  Mapes  gravitated  to  Philadelphia  to  write  for  Colonel  McClure's  Times. 
His  are  the  appetizing  paragraphs  that  burnish  the  editorial  page  by  their  subtile 
essence.  He  is  a  familiar  figure  at  party  conventions,  which  his  intimate  knowl- 
edge of  state-politics  enables  him  to  gauge  accurately.  He  abhors  trickery  and 
chicanery,  deals  his  hardest  blows  in  exposing  corrupt  methods,  believes  tax- 
payers and  voters  have  rights  contractors  and  bosses  are  bound  to  respect  and 
is  a  stickler  for  honest  government.  Williams  also  strayed  to  the  Quaker  City 
as  paragrapher  for  the  Press,  making  a  phenomenal  hit.  James  G.  Elaine  com- 
plimented Charles  Emory  Smith  upon  these  tart,  peppery  nuggets,  saying  "I 
invariably  read  the  Press  paragraphs  before  looking  at  any  other  paper. ' '  This 
pleasant  tribute  added  ten  dollars  a  week  to  Sam's  salary,  yet  he  tired  of 
Philadelphia  years  ago  and  glided  back  to  his  old  home  in  ' '  the  Messer  Diocese. ' ' 
He  is  now  connected  with  the  New-York  Herald. 

R.  W.  Criswell  holds  an  honorable  place  among  the  men  who  have  made 
oil-region  newspapers  known  abroad  and  influential  at  home.  He  was  born  in 
Clarion  county  and  educated  in  Cincinnati.  His  sketches,  signed  "Chris," 
introduced  him  to  the  public  through  the  medium  of  the  Oil  City  Derrick,  the 
East  Brady  Independent  and  the  Fairview  Independent,  Colonel  Samuel  Young's 
twin  offspring.  Retiring  from  Young's  employ  at  Fairview,  he  was  next  heard 
of  as  traveling  correspondent  of  the  Cincinnati  Enquirer.  His  editorship  of  the 
Derrick  in  1877  clinched  his  fame  as  a  Simon-pure  humorist,  thirty-six  inches 
to  the  yard  and  one-hundred  cents  to  the  dollar.  The  Shakesperian  parodies 
and  Lickshingle  stories,  lustrous  as  the  Kohinoor,  waltzed  the  merry  round 
of  the  American  press  and  were  published  in  two  taking  books — "The  New 
Shakespeare"  and  "Grandfather  Lickshingle."  After  his  departure  from  the 
Petroleum  World  Criswell  renewed  his  relations  with  the  Enquirer  as  manag- 
ing-editor. He  was  John  R.  McLean's  trusty  lieutenant  and  held  the  great  west- 
ern daily  on  the  topmost  rung  of  the  ladder.  The  New  York  Graphic,  the  path- 
finder of  illustrated  dailies,  needed  him  and  he  accepted  its  flattering  offer. 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


The  Cincinnati  Sun  was  about  to  shine  on  the  just  and  the  unjust  and  he 
returned  to  Porkopolis.  Colonel  John  Cockrell  coaxed  him  back  to  Manhattan- 
ville  to  reconstruct  the  funny-streak  of  the  overflowing  New  York  World. 
When  the  Colonel  and  Joseph  Pulitzer  disagreed — they  "  never  spoke  as  they 
passed  by" — he  went  with  Cockrell  to  the  Commercial  Advertiser,  for  which 
he  is  doing  some  of  the  brightest  work  in  the  newspaper  kingdom.  "Mark 
Anthony's  Oration  Over  Caesar,"  from  "The  Comic  Shakespeare,"  will  dispel 
the  gloom  and  indicate  the  rare  brand  of  Criswell's  vintage  : 

"  Friends,  Romans,  countrymen  !  lend  me  your  ears  ; 

I  will  return  them  next  Saturday.    I  come 

To  bury  Caesar  because  the  times  are  hard 

And  his  folks  can't  afford  to  hire  an  undertaker. 

The  evil  that  men  do  lives  after  them, 

In  the  shape  of  progeny,  who  reap 

The  benefit  of  their  life  insurance. 

So  let  it  be  with  the  deceased. 

Brutus  hath  told  you  that  Caesar  was  ambitious, 

What  does  Brutus  know  about  it  ? 

It  is  none  of  his  funeral. 

But  that  it  isn't  is  no  fault  of  the  undersigned. 

Here  under  leave  of  you  I  come  to 

Make  a  speech  at  Caesar's  funeral. 

He  was  my  friend,  faithful  and  just  to  me  ; 

He  loaned  me  five  dollars  once  when  I  was  in  » 

pinch, 

And  signed  my  petition  for  a  post-office. 
And  Brutus  says  he  was  ambitious. 
Brutus  should  chase  himself  around  the  block. 
Caesar  hath  brought  many  captives  home  to  Rome 
Who  broke  rock  on  the  streets  until  their  ransoms 
Did  the  general  coffers  fill. 

When  that  the  poor  hath  cried,  Caesar  hath  wept, 
Because  it  didn't  cost  anything 
And  made  him  solid  with  the  masses.          [Cheers. 
Ambition  should  be  made  of  sterner  stuff. 
Yet  Brutus  says  he  was  ambitious. 
Brutus  is  a  liar,  and  I  can  prove  it. 

You  all  did  see  that  on  the  Lupercal 

I  thrice  presented  him  a  kingly  crown, 

Which  he  did  thrice  refuse,  because  it  did  not  fit  him  quite. 

Was  this  ambition  ?    Yet  Brutus  says  he  was  ambitious. 

Brutus  is  not  only  the  biggest  liar  in  this  country, 

But  he  is  a  politician  of  the  deepest  dye. 

If  you  have  tears  prepare  to  shed  them  now. 

You  all  do  know  this  ulster. 

I  remember  the  first  time  ever  Caesar  put  it  on  ; 

It  was  on  a  summer's  evening  in  his  tent, 

With  the  thermometer  registering  ninety  degrees  in  the  shade  : 

But  it  was  an  ulster  to  be  proud  of, 

And  it  cost  him  $3  at  Marcalus  Swartzheimer's, 

Corner  of  Broad  and  Ferry  streets,  sign  of  the  red  flag. 

Old  Swartz  wanted  $40  for  it, 

But  finally  came  down  to  $3,  because  it  was  Caesar  ! 

Look  !  in  this  place  ran  Casca's  dagger  through  : 

Through  this  the  son  of  a  gun  of  a  Brutus  stabbed, 

And  when  he  plucked  his  cursed  steel  away, 

Good  gracious  how  the  blood  of  Caesar  followed  it ! 

[Cheers,  and  cries  of  "  Give  us  something  on  the  Wilson  bill  I"    "Hit  hint 
again;"  etc.] 

I  came  not,  friends,  to  steal  away  your  hearts. 


"  LEND  ME  YOUR   EARS 


[Applause. 
[Laughter. 


THE  LITERARY  GUILD. 


EDWIN    C.    BELL. 


I  am  no  thief  as  Brutus  is. 

Brutus  has  a  monopoly  in  all  that  business, 

And  if  he  had  his  deserts,  he  would  be 

In  th'e  State  prison  and  don't  you  forget  it. 

Kind  friends,  sweet  friends,  I  do  not  wish  to  stir  you  up 

To  such  a  sudden  flood  cf  mutiny, 

And,  as  it  looks  like  rain, 

The  pallbearers  will  please  place  the  body 

in  the  wheelbarrow 
And  we  will  proceed  to  bury  Caesar, 
Not  to  praise  him.  " 

Edwin  C.  Bell,  a  son  of  the  Pine-Tree  state, 
landed  at  Petroleum  Centre  in  1886,  spent  1869 
in  the  west,  returned  to  Oil  Creek  in  1870  and 
for  three  years  punched'  down  oil-wells.  In  1874 
he  started  a  job-printery  at  Pioneer,  using  a  press 
he  built  from  iron-scraps  and  an  oak-rail  and 
learning  the  trade  without  an  instructor.  That 
fall  he  transplanted  his  kittoTitusville  and  con- 
tinued in  the  jobbing  line  fourteen  years,  failing 
health  forcing  him  to  recuperate  for  a  spell. 
Early  in  1878  he  published  the  Leader,  a  weekly 
favoring  the  "Ohio  idea  "  of  paper-currency  and  the  rcmonetization  of  silver. 
Although  an  artistic  and  editorial  triumph,  the  Leader  was  a  financial  failure 
and  petered  out  in  two  months.  Undismayed  by  this  reverse,  Mr.  Bell  in  1882 
flew  the  flag  of  the  Republic,  a  campaign  oracle  of  the  Greenbackers  and  sup- 
porter of  Thomas  A.  Armstrong  for  governor.  The  Republic,  like  the  Argus, 
the  Observer  and  others  of  that  ilk,  didn't  attain  old  age.  Bell's  first  grists- 
stories  and  sketches — went  into  the  Courier  hopper  in  1872,  suplemented  from 
1878  to  1882  by  bundles  of  live  matter  in  the  Meadville  Vindicator 'and  the  Rich- 
burg  Echo.  He  edited  the  Republican  at  Casselton,  N.  D.,  in  1882-3,  and  for  the 
nine  years  following  his  return  to  Titusville 
sent  a  news-letter  almost  daily  to  the  Oil  City 
Blizzard.  He  has  long  contributed  to  the 

/V  IHl      Sunday  World  and  in  1888-9  was  its  assistant- 

^•K  i      editor.      In  1892  he  began  a  history  of  the 

lAfc   '*C-      wLl  i  Pennsylvania  oil-regions,  instalments  of  which 

™11  the  Derrick  printed,  and  he  hopes  to  finish 
the  task  on  a  comprehensive  scale  befitting 
the  subject.  His  collection  of  newspaper- 
files,  extracts,  jottings,  letters,  statistics  and 
petroleum  -  literature  cannot  be  matched 
anywhere  in  extent  and  completeness.  No 
reader  ever  rang  the  chestnut  -  bell  on  Ed- 
win C.  Bell's  cheery  and  instructive  tid-bits. 
At  Tidioutethey<3«rwa/,  inaugurated  by 
J.  B.  Close  in  1867,  jogged  along  seven  years, 
competing  with  White  &  Co.'s  newsy  News. 
Part  of  the  time  G.  A.  Needle  managed  it  and  W.  C.  Plumer,  Major  McClin- 
tock  and  Frank  H.  Taylor  were  attaches.  Warren  has  been  blessed  with  two 
weeklies,  the  Ledger  and  the  Mail,  for  two  generations.  Ephraim  Cowan 
founded  the  Mail  in  1848  and  owned  it  until  his  death  in  1894.  Three  dailies 


STEPHEN  W.  HARLEY. 


3 iS  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

vigilantly  watch  each  other  and  guard  the  pretty  town.  Needle,  whose  sharp 
lance  could  prick  the  fiends  of  the  opposition  like  a  needle,  followed  the  tide 
to  Parker  and  boosted  the  Daily,  which  shortly  plunged  into  perpetual  night. 
Its  chief  contributor  was  Stephen  W.  Harley,  who  furnished  rich  budgets  of 
Petrolia  odds  and  ends  over  the  name  of  "  Keno."  "Steve  "  was  kindly,  oblig- 
ing, congenial  and  well-liked.  Five  summers  have  come  and  gone  since  he  was 
laid  beneath  the  sod.  J.  Wilson  removed  the  Oilman 's  Journal  to  Smeth- 
port  and  the  weekly  Photnix  is  in  undisputed  possession  of  the  Parker  territory. 
Clarion  county  did  not  escape  the  frantic  rush  to  stick  a  newspaper  in  every 
mushroom-town.  F.  H.  Barclay  inflicted  the  Record  on  the  long-suffering  St. 
Petersburgers,  mooring  his  bark  in  California  when  the  paper  turned  up  its  toes. 
Tozer's  Crude  Local,  which  never  sported  a  crude  local  or  editorial,  the  Fern 
City  Illuminator,  brighter  in  name  than  in  substance,  the  Clarion  Banner,  a 
species  of  rag  on  the  bush,  the  Edenburg  National  and  several  more  slid  off 
the  perch  with  a  dull  thud,  fatal  as  Humpty  Dumpty's  tumble. 

Frank  Heir's  Record  is  still  making  a  good  record  at  Petrolia.  Colonel 
Young  and  the  three  papers  he  propagated  in  Butler  county,  with  a  half-dozen 
elsewhere,  have  mouldered  into  dust.  He  was  intensely  earnest  and  indus- 
trious, able  to  maintain  his  end  of  a  discussion  and  seldom  unwilling  to  dare 
opponents  knock  the  chip  off  his  stout  shoulder.  Rev.  W.  A.  Thorne  attempted 
to  reform  the  race  with  his  Greece  City  Review,  hauling  the  traps  to  Millerstown 
upon  the  depletion  of  the  frontier  town.  His  path  was  strewn  with  thorns,  man- 
kind resenting  his  review  of  everybody  and  everything.  Ex-Postmaster  Ratti- 
gan  braces  up  the  unterrified  with  his  sturdy  Chicora  Herald.  St.  Joe's  bantam 
crowed  mildly  and  dropped  from  the  roost.  The  county-seat  is  fully  stocked 
with  political  organs,  the  Citizen,  the  Eagle  and  the  Herald  coaching  their  re- 
spective parties.  J.  H.  Negley  &  Son  are  not  negligent  in  their  conduct  of  the 
Citizen.  The  Eagle  is  the  proud  bird  of  Thomas  H.  Robertson,  a  trained 
writer  and  journalist,  now  Superintendent  of  Public  Printing  in  Harrisburg.  The 
Herald  was  for  many  years  the  pet  of  Jacob  Zeigler,  to  whom  all  Butlerites  took 
off  their  hats.  "  Uncle  Jake  "  was  the  soul  of  the  social  circle,  a  treasury  of  wit 
and  wisdom,  an  exhaustless  reservoir  of  pat  stories,  a  mine  of  practical  knowl- 
edge and  a  welcome  guest  in  every  corner  of  Pennsylvania.  His  soubriquet  of 
"Uncle  "  fastened  upon  him  in  a  curious  way.  At  the  funeral  of  a  youthful  ac- 
quaintance the  distracted  mother,  as  her  boy  was  consigned  to  the  grave,  in  a 
frenzy  of  grief  laid  her  head  upon  young  Zeigler's  breast  and  exclaimed  :  "Oh, 
were  you  ever  a  stricken  mother?"  "  No,  madam,"  was  the  cool  reply,  "  but 
I  expect  to  be  an  uncle  before  sundown  to-morrow."  Bystanders  noted  the 
strange  incident  and  thenceforth  the  "  Uncle  "  stuck  like  a  fly-blister.  His  pa- 
rents are  buried  in  the  Harrisburg  cemetery,  near  Joseph  Jefferson's  father,  and 
whenever  he  visited  the  capital  he  strewed  their  resting-place  with  flowers. 
Who  can  doubt  that  the  filial  son,  in  whom  mingled  the  strength  of  a  man  and 
the  tenderness  of  a  woman,  found  his  loved  ones  not  far  away  when  he  entered 
the  pearly  gates ?  Truly  "  this  was  the  noblest  Roman  of  them  all." 

Another  honored  resident  of  Butler  was  Samuel  P.  Irvin,  author  of  "The 
Oil-Bubble,"  a  pamphlet  abounding  with  delicious  satire  and  bits  of  personal 
experience.  It  was  printed  in  1868  and  produced  a  sensation.  Enjoying  very 
few  advantages  in  his  boyhood,  Mr.  Irvin  was  emphatically  a  self-made  man. 
Born  in  a  backwoods-township  seventy  years  ago,  his  schooling  was  limited  and 
he  toiled  "down  on  the  farm."  Like  Lincoln,  Garfield.  Simon  Cameron  and 
many  other  country-boys,  he  rose  to  distinction  by  his  own  exertions.  He  read 


THE  LITERARY  GUILD. 


319 


assiduously,  studied  law  and  stood  well  at  the  bar.  His  literary  bent  found  ex- 
pression in  newspaper  articles  of  very  high  grade.  His  charm  of  manner  and 
speech,  his  vast  store  of  anecdote  and  reminiscence,  his  sincerity  and  frankness, 
his  warm  regard  for  friends  and  strong  dislike  of  anything  that  savored  of  mean- 
ness, combined  to  render  him  exceedingly  popular.  He  lived  some  years  at 
Franklin  in  the  earlier  stages  of  petroleum  devel- 
opments, drilling  wells  and  handling  oil-proper- 
ties on  commission.  He  met  death  with  becom 
ing  fortitude,  "like  one  who  wraps  the  drapery  of 
his  couch  about  him,  and  lies  down  to  pleasant 
dreams." 

The  Bradford  semi -weekly  New  Era,  har- 
binger of  the  new  era  dawning  upon  McKean 
county,  saw  daylight  in  the  spring  of  1875.  The 
main  object  of  its  founder,  Colonel  J.  K.  HafFey, 
was  to  invite  attention  to  the  possibilities  of  the 
locality  as  a  prospective  oil-field.  Colonel  HafFey 
was  a  man  of  varied  talents  —  public  -  speaker, 
writer,  soldier,  surveyor,  promoter  of  oil-enter- 
prises, railroader  and  expounder  of  the  gospel. 
Irish  by  birth,  he  came  to  America  at  fourteen, 
lived  three  years  in  Canada,  was  licensed  to  preach 
and  in  1851,  at  the  age  of  twenty-one,  accepted  a 
call  to  the  Baptist  church  at  Bradford,  then  Little- 
ton. Marrying  Diantha,  youngest  daughter  of 
Nathan  De  Golier,  in  December  of  1852,  a  year 
later  he  quit  the  pulpit,  sensibly  concluding  that 
the  Lord  had  not  called  him  to  starve  his  family. 
As  surveyor  and  geologist,  he  was  employed  to 
prospect  fpr  coal  and  iron  in  McKean  and  adjacent 
counties.  ;,  In  1858-9  he  had  charge  of  a  gang  of 
men  grading  the  Erie  railroad  to  Buttsville.  The 
first  man  in  Bradford  township  to  enlist  in  1861, 
he  raised  a  force  for  Colonel  Kane's  famous  "Buck- 
tails,"  drilled  in  Harrisburg  six  weeks,  shared  in 
the  fighting  around  Richmond  and  was  honorably  discharged  because  of  im- 
paired health,  in  1863,  with  the  rank  of  major.  Governor  Hartranft  appointed 
him  on  his  staff  and  the  title  of  colonel  resulted.  He  sold  his  Bradford  home  in 
1877  and  removed  to  Beverly,  N.  J.,  where  he  published  the  Banner,  a  temper- 
ance paper.  His  active,  helpful  career  ended  on  November  seventh,  1881,  in  his 
fifty-second  year.  Mrs.  HafFey  returned  to  Bradford,  to  pass  the  evening  of 
life  amid  the  friends  and  associations  of  her  girlhood,  until  summoned  to  rejoin 
him  who  ' ' is  not  lost,  but  gone  before,"  whose  "good  remembrance  lies  richly 
in  her  thoughts." 

Ferrin  &  Weber,  of  Salamanca,  publishers  of  the  Cattaraugiis  Republican, 
in  1876  bought  the  New  Era  from  Col.  Haffey  and  placed  it  in  charge  of  Charles 
F.  Persons.  He  had  been  in  their  establishment  at  Little  Valley  two  years.  For 
nine  or  ten  months  he  washed  rollers,  fed  presses,  carried  wood  and  did  the 
chores  allotted  to  the  "printer's  devil."  His  aptitude  impressed  his  employers, 
who  sent  him  first  to  Salamanca  and  then  to  Bradford,  an  important  post  for  a 


320 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


youth  of  twenty-two.  Hoping  to  be  an  editor  some  day,  he  had  corresponded 
for  neighboring  papers  from  boyhood  on  his  father's  farm,  a  practice  he  main- 
tained during  his  apprenticeship.  A  few  months  after  reaching  Bradford  he  and 
the  Salamanca  firm  established  the  Daily  Era,  with  the  names  of  Ferrin,  Weber 
&  Persons  at  the  mast-head.  Very  soon  Persons  bought  out  his  partners  and 
conducted  the  paper  alone.  His  ability  and  energy  had  full  play.  The  Era 
met  the  demands  of  the  eager,  restless  crowds  that  thronged  the  streets  of 
Bradford  and  scoured  the  hills  in  quest  of  territory.  Its  news  was  concise  and 
fresh,  its  oil-reports  were  not  doctored  for  speculative  ends,  it  had  opinions  and 
presented  them  tersely.  Persons  sold  to  W.  H.  Longwell  and  W.  F.  Jordan 


early  in  1879  a°d  in  the  fall  bought  the  Olean  Democrat.  The  nobby  New-York 
town  was  feeling  the  stimulus  of  oil-operations  and  he  started  the  Daily  Herald, 
enhancing  his  wallet  and  well-won  reputation.  The  American  Press- Association , 
which  furnishes  plate-matter  to  thousands  of  newspapers,  secured  him  in  1888 
as  Local  Manager  of  its  Newr-York  office.  Two  years  ago  he  was  promoted  to 
General  Eastern-Manager  and  in  1894  was  elected  Secretary,  Assistant  General- 
Manager  and  one  of  the  five  directors.  Mr.  Persons  occupies  a  snug  home  in 
Brooklyn,  with  his  wife  and  two  little  daughters.  He  is  a  live  representative  of 
the  go-ahead,  enterprising,  sagacious,  executive  American. 

Longwell  &  Jordan  also  bought  the  Breeze — it  first  breathed  the  oil-laden 


THE  LITERARY  GUILD.  321 

air  of  Bradford  in  1878  and  was  edited  by  David  Armstrong,  "organizer"  of  the 
producers  in  one  of  their  movements  to  "get  together" — and  consolidated  it 
with  the  Era.  Col.  Edward  Stuck,  of  York,  worked  the  combination  successfully 
some  months.  Colonel  Leander  M.  Morton  was  night-editor  until  his  lamented 
death.  Thomas  A.  Kern  attended  to  the  field,  preparing  the  c<  monthly  reports" 
and  posting  readers  on  oil-developments  in  his  bailiwick.  Years  have  flown 
since  poor  "Tom,"  young  and  enthusiastic,  andj.  K.  Graham,  exact  and  upright, 
responded  to  the  message  that  brooks  no  excuse  or  postponement.  ' '  Musing  on 
companions  gone,  we  doubly  feel  ourselves  alone."  Bradshaw,  McMulIen  and 
others  scattered.  Jordan,  whose  first  work  for  papers  was  done  at  Petrolia  in 
1873,  went  to  Harrisburg  in  1889.  P.  C.  Boyle  secured  the  Era  and  infused  into 
it  much  of  his  own  prompt,  courageous  spirit.  David  A.  Dennison  has  for  years 
been  its  efficient  editor.  His  parents  removed  from  Connecticut  to  a  farm  south 
of  Titusville  when  he  was  a  baby.  At  thirteen  David  wrote  a  batch  of  items, 
which  it  tickled  him  to  see  in  print,  without  a  thought  of  one  day  blossoming 
into  a  full-fledged  "literary  feller."  Not  caring  to  be  a  tiller  of  the  soil,  he 
juggled  the  hammer  and  lathe  in  machine-shops  to  the  music  of  "  the  Anvil 
Chorus."  A  short  season  on  the  boards  convinced  him  that  he  was  not  com- 
missioned to  elevate  the  stage  and  wrest  the  scepter  from  Edwin  Booth,  Law- 
rence Barrett,  John  McCullough  or  Alexander  Salvini.  He  whisked  to  a  Bradford 
shop  to  strike  the  iron  while  it  was  hot,  writing  smart  descriptions  of  oil-region 
scenes  for  outside  papers  as  a  side-issue  for  several  years.  A  series  of  his 
articles  on  gas-monopoly,  in  the  Elmira  Telegram,  brought  reduced  rates  to 
consumers  and  pleasant  notoriety  to  the  ironworker,  who  had  proved  himself  a 
blacksmith  with  the  sledge  and  no  "blacksmith"  with  the  quill.  His  name  was 
neither  Dennis  nor  Mud,  and  the  Daily  Oil  News,  McMulIen  &  Bradshaw's 
game-fowl,  wanted  him  forthwith.  The  salary  was  not  alluring  and  in  the  Indian- 
summer  days  of  1886  he  cast  in  his  lot  with  the  Era.  Promotion  chased  him 
persistently.  From  reporter  he  was  boosted  to  city-editor  and  in  1894  to  the 
editorial  management,  a  flawless  selection.  He  has  tussled  with  all  sorts  of 
topics,  constructed  tales  of  woe  in  jingling  verse  and  even  tempted  fate  by  firing 
off  a  drama,  which  has  not  yet  run  the  gamut  of  publicity.  Dennison  has  been 
offered  good  sits  in  metropolitan  offices,  but  he  likes  Bradford  and  clings  to  the 
Era.  He  married  Miss  Katharine  Grady  in  1883  and  three  boys  gladden  the 
home  of  the  exultant  D.  A.  D.  "  May  his  shadow  never  grow  less. ' ' 

The  Daily  News  was  converted  by  Mr.  Butler  into  a  Sunday  sheet,  which 
Commodore  Linderman,  Era  book-keeper  and  assistant-manager,  navigated 
until  it  ran  ashore  in  1894.  Butler  reeled  off  the  Buffalo  News,  the  sharpest, 
quickest,  breeziest  afternoon  paper  in  the  Bison  City.  Eben  Brewer's  Evening 
Star  tinted  the  sky  under  George  Allen's  artistic  stroke.  Allen  slid  to  Buffalo 
to  polish  up  a  railroad  periodical  and  at  last  accounts  was  rushing  the  United 
Press.  H.  F.  Barber,  a  man  of  fine  intellect  and  noble  purpose,  honed  the  Star 
for  years.  Protracted  sickness,  during  which  he  showed  ' '  how  sublime  it  is  to 
suffer  and  be  strong, ' '  at  last ' '  withered  the  garlands  on  his  brow. "  He  is  dead, 
but '  'his  speaking  dust  has  more  of  life  than  half  its  breathing  moulds. ' '  "Judge' ' 
Johnson — in  1875  he  landed  at  Bradford,  served  a  term  in  the  Legislature  and 
another  as  postmaster,  operated  in  oil  and  died  two  or  three  years  ago— con- 
trolled the  Star  after  Barber,  whose  widow  still  retains  an  interest  in  the  paper. 
Ex-Senator  Emery  fitted  out  the  Daily  Record,  which  seeks  to  trail  the  standard 
of  the  Standard  in  the  dust  and  ticket  independent  producers,  refiners  and  pipe- 
liners  to  a  petroleum  Utopia.  "  Ed. "  Jones,  the  adept  who  toed  the  chalk-mark 


322  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

on  the  Harrisburg  Call,  whirled  the  emery-wheel  so  expertly  that  the  Record 
has  never  approached  Davy  Jones's  locker.  It  is  snappy  and  full  of  fight  as  a 
shillalah  at  Donnybrook  Fair.  Andrew  Carr's  Sunday  Mail,  freighted  with  a 
car  of  delicate  morsels,  barked  up  the  wrong  tree  and  went  to  the  bow-wows. 
Carr  rolled  down  to  Pittsburg  to  sell  buggies, 
bagging  a  cargo  of  ducats.  "Tom"  L.  Wilson 
— he's  as  humorous  as  they  make  'em — got  out 
three  numbers  of  Sunday  Morning,  a  four-page 
blanket  in  size  and  a  ten-course  banquet  in  con- 
tents. Col.  Ege  shut  it  down  for  publishing  a 
rank  extract  from  Walt  Whitman's  "Blades  o' 
Grass."  Ege  was  a  banker  who  hankered  to 
be  State  Treasurer,  banked  upon  newspaper  sup- 
port, went  into  bankruptcy,  received  an  appoint- 
ment in  the  Philadelphia  Mint  and  traveled  west- 
ward when  Cleveland  shuffled  the  pack  for  a  new 
deal.  Wilson  wrote  for  the  oil-region  press, 
handled  the  Reading  branch  of  a  Harrisburg 
paper,  edited  the  Washington  Review — Sister- 
ville  has  a  sisterly  Review  now — and  rounded  up 
in  Buffalo.  The  Post,  Bradford's  latest  Sunday 

experiment,  owes  its  good  looks  and  good  matter  to  Edward  F.  Mclntyre  and 
George  O.  Sloan. 

One  evening  in  1877  a  young  stranger  walked  into  the  St.  Petersburg  post- 
office,  bought  a  package  of  stationery  at  the  book-counter  and  told  J.  M.  Place 
he  was  looking  for  a  situation.  Place  hired  him  as  a  clerk.  He  had  come  from 
the  homestead  farm  in  Orange  county,  N.  Y.,  to  Cornell  University,  worked  his 
way  and  graduated  in  civil-engineering.  Marshall  Swartzwelder  lectured  at 
St.  Petersburg  on  temperance  and  Place's  clerk  sat  up  all  night  to  report  the 
masterpiece  for  the  Derrick.  It  was  his  first  production  in  print,  a  voluntary  act 
on  his  part,  and  the  article  attracted  most  favorable  notice.  Its  author  was  at 
once  offered  a  position  on  the  Derrick.  He  came  in  contact  with  oil-statistics 
and  his  real  genius  asserted  itself.  His  painstaking,  conscientious  reports  were 
accepted  as  strictly  reliable.  He  would  trudge  over  the  hills,  wade  through 
miles  of  mud  and  ford  swollen  streams  to  ascertain  the  precise  status  of  an 
important  well,  rather  than  approximate  it  from  hearsay.  This  care  and  thor- 
oughness gave  the  highest  value  to  the  statistical  work  of  Justus  C.  McMullen. 
In  1879  ne  went  to  Bradford  and  worked  on  the  Breeze,  the  Era  and  the  Star, 
always  with  the  same  devotion  that  was  a  ruling  maxim  of  his  life.  In  1883  he 
scouted  in  Warren  and  Forest  counties  and  became  part  owner  of  the  Petroleum 
Age.  Alfred  L.  Snell  and  Major  W.  C.  Armor  were  associated  with  him  in  this 
admirable  monthly,  of  which  he  became  sole  proprietor  on  the  first  of  December, 
1887.  A.  C.  Crum,  now  on  the  editorial  staff  of  the  Pittsburg  Dispatch,  con- 
tributed many  a  newsy  crumb  to  the  Age.  A  newsboy  at  Pickwick  hailed  me  in 
front  of  his  stand  one  cool  morning  and  asked— not  in  a  Pickwickian  sense— if 
it  would  be  worth  while  to  get  somebody  to  send  locals  to  the  Derrick.  "Why 
not  do  it  yourself?"  was  my  answer.  He  tried  and  he  succeeded.  His  work 
expanded  and  improved  and  he  adopted  journalism  permanently.  He  catered 
for  Oil  City  and  Bradford  papers,  spun  yarns  for  Pittsburg  dailies  and  was  a 
legislative  correspondent  several  sessions.  Snell ,  a  statistical  hummer  and  hard- 
to-beat  purveyor  of  news,  hangs  his  manuscript  on  the  Derrick  hook.  Armor 


7 HE  LITERARY  GUILD. 


323 


sponsored  a  historic  book  and  laid  off  his  armor  to  second  Dr.  Egle  in  the  State 
Library.  He  has  a  book-store  in  Harrisburg  and  a  museum  that  distances  the 
"Old  Curiosity  Shop."  McMullen  established  and  edited  the  Daily  Oil-News 
in  1886.  He  died  of  pleurisy,  contracted  from  exposure  in  collecting  oil-data,  on 
January  thirty-first,  1888,  cut  off  at  thirty-seven.  The  Petroleum  Age  did  not 


stay  long  behind  its  unswerving  projector.  Justus  C.  McMullen  is  enshrined  in 
the  affections  of  the  people.  An  unrelenting  foe  of  oppression,  he  had  a  warm 
heart  for  the  poor  and  pursued  his  own  path  of  right  through  thorns  or  flowers. 
He  married  Miss  Cora,  daughter  of  Col.  L.  M.  Morton,  who  lives  in  Bradford 
and  has  one  little  girl.  A  brave,  grand,  exalted  spirit  passed  from  earth  when 
J.  C.  McMullen 's  light  was  quenched. 

"  On  the  sands  of  life 
Sorrow  treads  heavily  and  leaves  a  print 
Time  cannot  wash  away." 

Melville  J.  Kerr,  a  Franklin  boy,  son  of  the  senior  proprietor  of  the  marble- 
works,  is  a  popular  writer  of  facetiae  and  society  small-talk.  Possibly  "a  rose 
by  any  other  name  would  smell  as  sweet,"  but  his  cognomen  of  "Jo  Ker"  is 
known  to  thousands  of  smiling  readers  who  never  heard  of  Melville.  The 
aspiring  youth,  believing  in  the  advantages  of  a  big  city,  journeyed  to  New  York 
to  look  for  an  opportunity  that  might  want  a  party  about  his  size  and  style. 
Unlike  Jacob  for  Rachel,  Penelope  for  Ulysses,  the  zealots  who  prayed  for  Inger- 
soll's  conversion  or  the  Governor  of  South  Carolina  for  the  Governor  of  North 
Carolina  to  "fill'  em  up  again, ' '  he  didn'  t  wait  long.  A  soap-mogul  liked  the  am- 
bitious, sprightly  young  man,  introduced  him  to  the  swell  set  and  booked  him  as 
editor  of  The  Club.  Kerr's  refined  humor  popped  and  effervesced  with  more 
"bead "  than  ever.  He  hobnobbed  with  millionaires,  delighted  Ward  McAlister 
and  married  a  lovely  girl.  Blood  will  tell  as  surely  as  a  gossip  or  a  tale-bearer. 
And  that  is  how  the  "Jo  Ker"  is  the  winning  card  in  one  oil-region  life. 

In  the  Franklin  office  of  the  Galena  Oil  Works  are  three  successful  weavers 
of  rich  textures  in  the  literary  loom— -Dr.  Frank  H.  Johnston,  E.  H.  Sibley  and 


324 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


Samuel  H.  Gray.  Dr.  Johnston  was  born  in  Canal  township,  reared  on  a  farm, 
severely  wounded  in  battling  for  the  Union,  studied  medicine,  practiced  at 
Cochranton  and  in  1872  located  at  Petrolia.  There  "  he  first  essayed  to  write" 
for  the  Oil  City  Derrick.  From  the  very  outset  his  articles  were  up  to  concert 
pitch.  Abandoning  medicine  for  letters,  he  acquired  a  thorough  knowledge  of 
stenography,  read  the  choicest  books  and  wrote  in  his  best  vein  for  the  press. 

He  represented  the  Der- 
rick as  its  Franklin  cor- 
respondent with  credit 
to  himself  and  the  paper. 
For  sixteen  years  he  has 
been  connected  with  the 
Galena  Oil  Worksas  sec- 
retary of  Hon.  Charles 
Miller,  a  place  demand- 
ing the  superior  qualifi- 
cations with  which  the 
doctor  is  unstintingly 
endowed. 

Edwin  Henry  Sibley, 
born  at  Bath,  N.  Y.,  in 
iSsy.is  a  brother  of  Hon. 
Joseph  C.  Sibley  and 
has  resided  in  Franklin 
twenty-two  years.  He 
was  graduated  from  Cor- 
nell University  in  1880. 
For  several  years  he  has 
been  treasurer  of  the 
Galena  Oil-Works  and 
manager  of  Miller  &  Sib- 
ley's  famous  Prospect- 
Hill  Stock  Farm,  posi- 
tions of  responsibility  to 
which  his  personal  ad- 
dress, his  training  and 
his  business-methods 
adapt  him  pre-eminent- 
ly. Under  guise  of ' '  Po- 
lybius  Crusoe  Smith, 
Sage  of  Cranberry  Cross- 
Roads" —  the  Smiths 
are  a  great  family  since 
the  by-play  of  Pocahontas— he  contributes  to  Puck  and  other  well-known  pub- 
lications humorous  articles  and  short,  quaint,  pithy  sayings.  These  display  a 
keen  insight  into  human  nature  and  rare  gift  of  happy,  accurate  expression.  One 
of  his  recent  effusions — an  address  welcoming  the  delegates  to  an  agricultural 
convention— is  a  bit  of  burlesque  that  deserves  to  rank  with  Artemus  Ward's 
brightest  efforts  or  the  richest  paragraphs  in  the  Biglow  Papers.  A  few  buds 
plucked  at  random  from  the  flowery  mead  will  serve  to  illustrate  the  high-class 
stamp  of  Mr.  Sibley's  work  in  the  field  his  genius  adorns.  They  are  literary 


THE  LITERARY  GUILD.  325 

nosegays  from  his  trite  observations  as  a  philosophic  "looker-on  in  Vienna:  " 

"  The  pygmies  of  Africa  are  such  by  nature,  but  elsewhere  they  are  produced  artificially 
by  a  diet  of  petty  and  envious  thoughts  " 

"  '  Truth  is  mighty  and  will  prevail,'  but  Error  generally  has  the  better  of  it  till  the  seventy- 
seventh  round." 

"One  of  the  greatest  evils  that  humanity  has  to  contend  with  is  that  fo  many  icebergs  have 
fioated  down  from  the  North  Pole  and  persist  in  passing  themselves  off  for  men." 

"Former  loves  in  making  out  their  title-deeds  of  the  heart  to  their  successors  always  reserve 
at  least  a  narrow  pathway  across  a  corner." 

"Wise  men  and  fools  have  foolish  thoughts;  fools  tell  them,  wise  men  keep  them  to  themselves." 

"Parents  that  haven't  time  to  correct  their  children  when  they  are  small  will  have  time  to 
weep  over  them  when  they  are  grown." 

"Affectation  (an  alias  of  Deceit  fulness)  has  three  picked  cronies  from  whcm  she  is  seldom 
separated.  Their  names  are  False  Pride,  Weakmindedness  and  Bad  Temper." 

"If  one  has  too  much  vitality  in  his  brains  he  can  get  rid  of  it  by  taking  them  out  and  boiling 
them.  If  he  finds  this  too  much  bother,  he  can  accomplish  the  same  result  by  swallowing  a  few 
doses  of  a  decoction  of  faith-cure,  spook-lore  and  hypnotism." 

"  The  ancient  Israelites  once  worshipped  a  golden  calf,  but  the  modern  Americans  would 
worship  a  golden  polecat  if  they  couldn't  get  the  gold  in  any  other  form  to  worship." 

"The  wife  that  manages  her  husband  is  a  genius,  the  one  that  bosses  him  is  a  tartar,  the  one 
that  fights  with  him  is  a  fool,  while  the  one  that  does  none  of  them  is  now  as  much  out  of  fashion 
as  her  grandmother's  wedding-gown." 

"For  peace  of  mind  and  length  of  days,  put  this  inscription  above  the  doorway  of  workshop 
and  home:  Troubles  that  will  not  be  worth  worrying  over  seven  yei.ts  hence  are  not  worth 
worrying  over  now." 

Samuel  H.  Gray  carries  under  his  hat  plenty  of  the  gray-matter  that  makes 
bright  writers  and  bright  wooers  of  the  Muses.  He  has  been  court  stenogra- 
pher of  Venango  county  and  holds  a  confidential  position  with  the  firm  of  Miller 
&  Sibley,  applying  his  spare  moments  to  newspaper  writing.  His  pictures  of 
petroleum-traits  and  incidents  are  finished  word-paintings,  with  "light  and 
shade  and  color  properly  disposed."  Like  Silas  Wegg,  he  "drops  into  poetry" 
in  a  friendly  way.  Such  papers  as  the  New  York  Truth  strive  for  his  emanations, 
which  savor  of  Bret  Harte  and  "hold  the  mirror  up  to  nature"  in  oleaginous 
circles.  Judge  of  this  "  By  the  Order  of  the  Lord,"  founded  on  an  actual  occur- 
rence in  Scrubgrass  township  : 

"  It  was  back,  if  I  remember,  in  the  year  of  sixty-five, 

When  we  formed  a  part  and  parcel  of  that  rushin',  busy  hive 

That  extended  from  Oil  City  up  the  crooked  crick  until 

It  reached  its  other  endin'  in  the  town  of  Titusville  ; 

When  every  rock  an'  hillside  was  included  in  a  lease, 

An'  everyone  was  huntin'  fer  the  fortune-makin"  grease  ; 

When  a  poor  man  pushed  and  elbowed  'gainst  the  oily  millionaire, 

An'  '  the  devil  take  the  hindmost"  seemed  the  a'1-pervadin'  prayer. 
"  An  we  hed  formed  a  pardnership,  jest  Tom  an'  Jim  an'  me, 

That  was  properly  recorded  as  the  '  Tough  and  Hungry  Three,' 

An'  hed  gone  an'  leased  a  portion  of  some  hard  an'  rocky  soil 

That  we  thought  looked  like  the  cover  of  a  fountain  filled  with  oil. 

An"  we  set  the  drill  a'goin'  on  its  long  an'  greasy  quest, 

That  meant  so  much  or  little  to  the  capital  possessed. 

Our  money  was  all  in  the  well,  in  Providence  our  trust, 

An"  we  waited  for  a  fortune,  or  to  liquidate  an"  bu'st. 
"  An'  while  the  drill  was  chuggin'  at  its  hard  an'  rocky  way 

We  three  would  hold  a  meetin'  at  a  certain  time  each  day, 

The  'resolves'  an'  the  'whereases'  that  the  secretary  took 

Were  properly  recorded  'twixt  the  covers  of  a  book. 

An'  we  passed  a  resolution  by  a  vote  unanimous 

Thet  if  Providence  would  condescend  to  sorter  favor  us, 

An'  assist  the  operations  on  the  '  Tough  and  Hungry"  lease, 

We  would  give  to  Him  a  quarter  of  the  total  flow  of  grease. 


326 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


"  Next  day  the  drill  broke  through  into  a  very  oily  sand 
An'  Providence  remembered  us  with  strong,  unsparin'  hand; 
The  oil  came  out  with  steady  flow  an'  loaded  up  the  tanks, 
An'  the  Lord  was  due  rewarded  by  a  solid  vote  of  thanks. 
A  resolution  then  came  up  thet  caused  the  vote  to  split, 
A  sort  of  an  amendment,  readin'  somethin'  like,  to  wit — 
'  Whereas,  a  tenth  is  all  the  Lord  was  ever  known  to  crave, 
Resolved  we  give  it  to  Him  ;  but  resolved  the  rest  we  save.' 

"  I  fit  that  resolution,  an'  I  fit  it  tooth  an"  nail, 
Spoke  of  dangers  such  proceedin's  was  most  likely  to  entail  ; 
But  two  votes  were  in  its  favor,  an'  two  votes  it  only  took 
Fer  to  have  it  due  recorded  in  the  resolution-book. 
Next  day  the  oil  stopped  flowin'  an'  it  never  flowed  no  more, 
An'  the  'Tough  and  Hungry'  combine  was  a'  feelin'  blue  an'  sore, 
But  they  nailed  upon  the  derrick  this  notice,  on  a  board, 

'  This  well  has  stopped  proceedin's,  by  the  order  of  the  Lord.'  " 

The  Rev.  S.  J.  M.  Eaton — his  name  is  ever  spoken  with  reverence — thirty- 
three  years  pastor  of  the  Presbyterian  church  at  Franklin,  filled  a  large  place  in 
the  literary  guild.     He  loved  especially  to  delve  into  old  books  and  papers  and 
letters  pertaining  to  the  pioneers  of  Northwestern  Pennsylvania.     His  faithful 
labors  in  this  neglected  nook  unearthed  a  troop 
of  traditions  and  facts  which  ' '  the  world  will 

^EpS^|.  not  willingly  let  die."     For  the  "History  of 

Venango  County"  he  furnished  a  number  of 
leading  chapters.   His  published  works  include 

lk>  *K  irw  "  Petroleum, ' '  an  epitome  of  oil-affairs  down 

fiRv        !    to  1866,  "Lakeside,"  a  tale  based  upon  his 

jjf*\  \f  father's  ministerial  experiences  in  the  wilds  of 

Erie  county,  biographies  of  eminent  divines, 

sketches  of  the  Erie  Presbytery,  pamphlets  and 

•     sermons.    " The  Holy  City"  and  "  Palestine, " 

^^^      ^  ^^fe'-       embodying  his  observations  in  the  orient,  were 

I     issued  as  text-books  by  the  Chautauqua  Circle. 

^H  I     Dr.  Eaton  was  my  near  neighbor  for  years  and 

^H  I     hours  in  his  well-stocked  library,  enriched  by 

his  "affluence  of  discursive  talk,"  are  recalled 

with  deep  satisfaction.     On  the  sixteenth  of 

July,  1889,  while  walking  along  the  street,  he  raised  his  hands  suddenly  and 
fell  to  the  pavement,  struck  down  by  heart-failure.  "He  was  not,  for  God 
took  him"  to  wear  the  victor's  crown.  Farewell,  "until  the  day  dawn  and  the 
shadows  flee  away." 

Last  June  a  compact ' '  Life  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte, ' '  in  harmony  with  the  age 
of  steam  and  electricity  that  won't  winnow  a  bushel  of  chaff  for  a  grain  of  wheat, 
which  had  run  through  the  winter  and  spring  of  1894-5  in  McClure'  s  Magazine, 
was  published  in  book-form.  Napoleonic  ground  had  been  so  plowed  and 
harrowed  and  raked  and  scraped  and  sifted  by  Hugo,  Scott,  Abbott,  Hazlitt, 
Bourrienne,  Madame  Junot  and  a  host  of  smaller  fry  that  it  seemed  idle  to  expect 
anything  new  concerning  the  arbiter  of  Europe.  Yet  the  beauty  and  freshness 
and  acumen  of  this  "Life  "  surprised  and  captivated  its  myriad  readers,  whose 
pleasure  it  increased  to  learn  that  the  book  was  the  production  of  a  young 
woman.  The  authoress  is  Miss  Ida  M.,  daughter  of  Franklin  S.  Tarbell,  a 
wealthy  oil-operator.  Her  childhood  was  spent  at  Rouseville,  where  her  parents 
lived  prior  to  occupying  their  present  home  at  Titusville.  The  romantic  sur- 


THE  LITERARY  GUILD.  327 

roundings  were  calculated  to  awaken  glowing  fancies  in  the  acute  mind  of  the 
little  girl.  After  graduating  from  Allegheny  College,  Meadville,  she  taught  in 
the  seminary  at  Poland,  O.  Finding  the  duties  of  preceptress  too  burdensome, 
she  returned  home  to  recuperate.  The  editor  of  The  Chautauquan  desiring  her 
to  aid  in  preparing  Notes  on  the  Readings  for  the  Chautauqua  Literary  and 
Scientific  Circle,  she  went  to  Meadville.  She  picked  up  editorial  work  bit  by 
bit  until  she  found  herself  associate-editor  of  the  organ  of  the  wonderful  Assem- 
bly. The  magazine  required  much  department-assorting,  drudgery  apt  to  become 
intellectually  dissipating  and  lead  ultimately  into  a  rut.  Miss  Tarbell,  therefore, 
took  up  a  special  line  of  study  to  vary  her  routine.  Choosing  French  Revolu- 
tionary History,  she  decided  to  prepare  a  series  of  magazine  articles  on  the 
women  of  the  dark  days  of  Robespierre,  Danton,  Marat  and  Marie  Antoinette, 
holding  steadily  to  the  subject  until  she  knew  something  satisfactory  about  it. 
In  the  spring  of  1891  she  resigned  from  the  The  Chautauquan  and  went  abroad 
to  study  history,  selecting  Paris  as  the  place  in  which  to  carry  out  her  plans. 
She  remained  three  years  on  the  continent,  giving  her  time  almost  exclusively 
to  French  historical  subjects,  writing  for  American  newspapers  and  contributing 
special  articles  to  Scribner's,  McClure's  and  the  New  England  Magazine.  This 
careful  preparation  fortified  her  to  undertake,  upon  returning  from  France  in 
1894,  the  "Life  of  Napoleon"  that  has  brought  the  gifted  daughter  of  the  oil- 
regions  enduring  fame.  The  Scribners  will  soon  publish  Miss  Tarbell's  biograph- 
ical study  of  Madame  Roland,  the  heroine  of  the  Revolution.  Just  now  she  is 
residing  in  New  York,  editing  the  articles  on  Abraham  Lincoln  in  McClure's. 
Her  success  thus  early  in  her  career  gives  fruitful  promise  of  a  resplendent  future 
for  the  vivacious,  winsome  biographer  of  the  "  Little  Corporal." 

While  many  names  and  terms  and  phrases  peculiar  to  oil-operations  are 
unintelligible  to  the  tenderfoot  as  "the  confusion  of  tongues"  at  Babel,  others 
will  be  valuable  additions  to  the  language.  "  He  has  the  sand  "aptly  describes 
a  gritty,  invincible  character.  The  fortunate  adventurer  "strikes  oil,"  the 
pompous  strutter  is  "a  big  gasser,"  foolish  anger  is  "  pumping  roily  "  and  fruit- 
less enterprise  is  "boring  in  dry  territory."  Misdirected  effort  is  "off  the 
belt, "  failure  "stops  the  drill,"  a  lucky  investment  "hits  the  jugular,"  a  hin- 
drance "sticks  the  tools"  and  an  abandoned  effort  "plugs  the  well."  A  man 
or  well  that  keeps  at  it  is  "a  stayer, "  one  that  doesn't  pan  out  is  "  a  duster, "  one 
that  cuts  loose  is  "a  gusher"  or  "a  spouter."  Fair  promise  means  "a  good 
show,"  the  owner  of  pipe-line  certificates  "  has  a  bundle,"  fleeced  speculators 
are  "shorn  lambs" — not  limited  to  Oildom  by  a  large  majority — and  the  ruined 
operator  "shuts  'er  down."  In  a  moment  of  inspiration  John  P.  Zane  created 
"the  noble  producer,"  Lewis  F.  Emery  invented  "the  downtrodden  refiner'' 
and  Samuel  P.  Irvin  exploited  "the  Great  Invisible  Oil-Company."  Some  of 
these  epigrammatic  phrases  deserve  to  go  thundering  down  the  ages  with 
Grant's  "let  us  have  peace,"  Cleveland's  "pernicious  activity"  and  "a  sucker 
is  born  every  minute." 

Nor  is  the  jargon  of  places  and  various  appliances  devoid  of  interest  to  the 
student  of  letters.  Oil  City,  Petroleum  Centre,  Oleopolis,  Petrolia,  Greece  City- 
first  spelled  G-r-e-a-s-e — Gas  City,  Derrick  City  and  Oil  Springs  were  named  with 
direct  reference  to  the  slippery  commodity.  From  prominent  operators  came 
Funkville,  Shamburg,  Tarr  Farm,  Rouseville,  McClintockville,  Fagundas,  Pren- 
tice, Cochran,  Karns  City,  Angelica,  Criswell  City,  Gillmor,  Duke  Centre  and 
Dean  City.  Noted  men  or  early  settlers  were  remembered  in  Titusville,  Shaffer, 
Plumer,  Trunkeyville,  Warren,  Irvineton,  McKean,  De  Golier,  Custer  City, 


328  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

Garfield,  Franklin,  Reno,  Foster,  Cooperstown,  Kennerdell,  Milton,  Foxburg, 
Pickwick,  Parker,  Troutman,  Butler,  Washington,  Mannington  and  Morgantown. 
Emlenton  commemorates  Mrs.  Emlon  Fox.  St.  Joe  recalls  Joseph  Oberly,  a 
pioneer-operator  in  that  portion  of  Butler  county.  Standoff  City  kept  green  a 
contractor  who  wished  to  "  stand-off"  his  men's  wages  until  he  finished  a  well. 
A  deep  hole  or  pit  on  the  bank  of  the  creek,  from  which  air  rushed,  suggested 
Pi  thole.  Tip-Top,  near  Pleasantville,  signified  its  elevated  site.  Cornplanter, 
the  township  in  which  Oil  City  is  situated,  bears  the  name  of  the  stalwart  chief- 
six  feet  high  and  one  hundred  years  old — to  whom  the  land  was  ceded  for  friendly 
services  to  the  government  and  the  white  settlers.  This  grand  old  warrior  died 
in  1836  and  the  Legislature  erected  a  monument  over  his  grave,  on  the  Indian 
reservation  near  Kinzua.  Venango,  Tionesta,  Conewago,  Allegheny,  Modoc 
and  Kanawha  smack  of  the  copper-hued  savage  once  monarch  of  the  whole 
plantation.  Red-Hot,  Hardscrabble,  Bullion,  Babylon,  St.  Petersburg,  Fairview. 
Antwerp,  Dogtown,  Turkey  City  and  Triangle  are  sufficiently  obvious.  Sister- 
ville,  the  centre  of  activity  in  West  Virginia,  is  blamed  upon  twin-islets  in  the 
river.  Alemagooselum  is  a  medley  as  uncertain  in  its  origin  as  the  ingredients 
of  boarding-house  hash.  Diagrams  are  needed  to  convey  a  reasonable  notion 
of  "clamps,"  "seed-bags,"  "jars,"  "reamers,"  "sockets,"  "centre-bits," 
" mud-veins, "  "tea-heads,"  "conductors,"  "Samson-posts,"  "bull- wheels," 
"band-wheels,"  "walking-beams,"  "grasshoppers,"  "sucker-rods,"  "temper- 
screws,"  "pole-tools,"  "casing,"  "tubing,"  "working-barrels,"  ''standing- 
valves,"  "check- valves,"  -'force-pumps,"  "loading-racks,"  "well-shooters," 
"royalty,"  "puts,"  "calls,"  "margins,"  "carrying-rates,"  "spot,"  "regular," 
"pipage,"  "storage,"  and  the  thousand-and-one  things  that  make  up  the  past 
and  present  of  the  lingo  of  petroleum. 


THE  WOMAN'S  EDITION. 

To  raise  twenty-five-hundred  dollars  for  an  annex  to  the  hospital,  the  ladies 
of  Oil  City,  on  February  twelfth,  1896,  issued  the  "Woman's  Edition  "  of  the 
Derrick.  It  was  a  splendid  literary  and  financial  success,  realizing  nearly  five- 
thousand  dollars.  This  apt  poem  graced  the  editorial  page : 

Oh  !  sad  was  her  brow  and  wild  was  her  mien, 
Her  expression  the  blankest  that  ever  was  seen  ; 
She  was  pained,  she  was  hurt  at  the  plain  requisition  : 
"  We  expect  you  to  write  for  the  Woman's  Edition." 

Her  babies  wept  sadly,  her  husband  looked  blue, 
Her  house  was  disordered,  each  room  in  a  stew ; 
Do  you  ask  me  to  tell  why  this  sad  exhibition? 
She  was  trying  to  write  for  the  Woman's  Edition. 

Oh,  what  should  she  write  ?  she  had  nothing  to  say  ; 
She  pondered  and  thought  all  the  long  weary  day ; 
The  question  of  woman,  her  life  and  her  mission, 
Must  all  be  touched  up  in  the  Woman's  Edition. 

But  what  could  she  do— oh,  how  could  she  write? 

She  could  bake,  she  could  brew  from  morning  to  night ; 

She  had  even  been  known  to  get  up  a  petition  : 

But  now  she  must  write  for  "The  Woman's  Edition." 

She  felt  that  she  must ;  her  sisters  all  did  it, 
Would  she  fall  behind  ?    The  saints  all  forbid  it ! 
If  the  rest  of  her  life  should  be  spent  in  contrition, 
She  felt  she  must  write  for  the  Woman's  Edition. 

She  did  it,  she  wrote  it,  now  read  it  and  ponder; 
She  treated  a  subject  a  little  beyond  her, 
But  that  was  much  better  than  total  omission 
Of  her  name  from  the  list  on  the  Woman's  Edition. 

Now  her  home  is  restored,  her  husband  has  smiled, 
But,  alas  !  that  pleased  look  on  his  face  was  beguiled 
By  her  cheerful  assent  to  his  simple  condition : 
That  she'll  not  write  again  for  a  Woman's  Edition. 


WELL  PLOWING  OIL  APTER  TORPEDOING. 


XIII. 

NITRO-GLYCERINE   IN   THIS. 

EXPLOSIVES  AS  AIDS  TO  THE  PKODUCTIOX  OF  OIL— THE  ROBERTS  TORPEDO  MO- 
NOPOLY AND  ITS  LEADERS— UNPRECEDENTED  LITIGATION— MOONLIGHTERS  AT 
WORK — FATALITIES  FROM  THE  DEADLY  COMPOUND — PORTRAITS  AND  SKETCHES 
OF  VICTIMS — MEN  BLOWN  TO  FRAGMENTS —STRANGE  ESCAPES — THE  LOADED 
POUKER— STORIES  TO  ACCEPT  OR  REJECT  AS  IMPULSE  PROMPTS. 


'  There  is  no  distinguished  Genius  altogether  exempt  from  some  infusion  of  Madness." — Aristotle. 
'  Genius  must  be  born  and  never  can  be  taught." — Dryden. 
'  He  who  would  seek  for  pearls  must  dive  below." — Addison. 
'  Labor  with  what  zeal  we  will,  something  still  remains  undone." — Longfellow. 
'  Come,  bright  Improvement,  on  the  car  of  Time." — Campbell. 
'  Revetige,  at  first  though  sweet,  bitter  ere  long,  back  on  itself  recoils.1' — Milton. 
'  Only  these  fragments  and  nothing  more  ! 

Can  naught  to  our  arms  the  lost  restore?  " — Ibid. 

"  Death  itself  is  less  painful  when  it  comes  upon  us  unawares.  "—Pascal. 
''  Dead?  did  you  say  he  was  dead?   or  is  it  only  my  brain? 
He  went  away  an  hour  ago  ;  will  he  never  come  again?'' — Tamar  Kermode. 

"  There  is  no  armor  against  fate."— Shirley. 
"  Dreadful  is  their  doom    *   *    *   like  yonder  blasted  bough  by  thunder  riven."— Seattle. 


m 


^ 


HEN  in  1846  a  patient  European 
chemist  hit  upon  a  new  com- 
pound by  mixing  fuming  nitric- 
acid,  sulphuric-acid  and  glyce- 
rine in  certain  proportions,  he 
didn't  know  it  was  loaded.     Glycerine 
is  a  harmless  substance  and  its  very 
name  signifies  sweetness.     Combining 
it  with  the  two  acids  changed  the  three 
ingredients  materially.     The  action  of 
the  acids  caused  the  glycerine  to  lose 
hydrogen  and  take   up   nitrogen  and 
oxygen.     The  product,  which  the  dis- 
coverer baptized   Nitro-Glycerine,  ap- 
peared meek  and  innocent  as  Mary's 
little  lamb  and  was  readily  mistaken 
for  lard-oil.     It  burned  in  lamps,  con- 
suming quietly  and  emitting  a  gentle 
light.     But  concussion  proved  the  oily- 
NITRO-GLYCERINE  LETS  GO.  looking  liquid  to  be  a  terrible  explo- 

sive, more  powerful  than  gun-cotton,  gunpowder  or  dynamite.      For  twenty 
years  it  was  not  applied  to  any  useful  purpose  in  the  arts.     Strangely  enough, 


332  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE   OIL. 

it  was  first  put  up  as  a  homoeopathic  remedy  for  headache,  because  a  few  drops 
rubbed  on  any  portion  of  the  body  pained  the  head  acutely.  James  G.  Elaine 
was  given  doses  of  it  on  his  death-bed.  An  energetic  poison,  fatalities  re- 
sulted from  imbibing  it  for  whisky,  which  it  resembles  in  taste.  After  a  time 
attention  was  directed  unexpectedly  to  its  explosive  qualities.  A  small  con- 
signment, sent  to  this  country  as  a  specimen,  accidentally  exploded  in  a  New- 
York  street.  This  set  the  newspapers  and  the  public  talking  about  it  and  won- 
dering what  caused  the  stuff  to  go  off.  Investigation  solved  the  mystery  and 
revealed  the  latent  power  of  the  compound,  which  had  previously  figured  only 
as  a  rare  chemical  in  a  half-score  foreign  laboratories.  Miners  and  contractors 
gradually  learned  its  value  for  blasting  masses  of  rock.  Five  pounds,  placed 
in  a  stone-jar  and  suspended  against  the  iron-side  of  the  steamer  Scotland,  sunk 
off  Sandy  Hook,  cut  a  fissure  twelve  feet  long  in  the  vessel.  A  steamship  at 
Aspinwall  was  torn  to  atoms  and  people  stood  in  mortal  terror  of  the  destruc- 
tive agent.  Girls  threw  away  the  glycerine  prescribed  for  chapped  lips,  lest  it 
should  burst  up  and  distribute  them  piecemeal  over  the  next  county.  Their 
cotton-padding  or  charcoal-dentifrice  was  as  dangerous  as  the  glycerine  alone, 
which  is  an  excellent  application  for  the  skin.  A  flame  or  a  spark  would  not 
explode  Nitro-Glycerine  readily,  but  the  chap  who  struck  it  a  hard  rap  might 
as  well  avoid  trouble  among  his  heirs  by  having  had  his  will  written  and  a 
cigar-box  ordered  to  hold  such  fragments  as  his  weeping  relatives  could  pick 
from  the  surrounding  district.  Such  was  the  introduction  to  mankind  of  a  com- 
pound that  was  to  fill  a  niche  in  connection  with  the  production  of  petroleum. 
Paraffine  is  the  unrelenting  foe  of  oil-wells.  It  clogged  and  choked  some 
of  the  largest  wells  on  Oil  Creek  and  diminished  the  yield  of  others  in  every 
quarter  of  the  field.  It  incrusts  the  veins  of  the  rock  and  the  pipes,  just  as  lime 
in  the  water  coats  the  tubes  of  a  steam-boiler  or  the  inside  of  a  tea-kettle.  How 
to  overcome  its  ill  effects  was  a  question  as  serious  as  the  extermination  of  the 
potato-bug  or  the  army-worm.  Operators  steamed  their  wells,  often  with  gocd 
results,  the  hot  vapor  melting  the  paraffine,  and  drenched  them  with  benzine 
to  accomplish  the  same  object.  A  genius  patented  a  liquid  that  would  boil  and 
fizz  and  discourage  all  the  paraffine  it  touched,  cleaning  the  tubing  and  the 
seams  in  the  sand  much  as  caustic-soda  scours  the  waste-pipe  of  a  sink  or  closet. 
These  methods  were  very  limited  in  their  scope,  the  steam  condensing,  the  ben- 
zine mixing  with  the  oil  and  the  burning  fluid  cooling  off  before  penetrating  the 
crevices  in  the  strata  any  considerable  distance.  Exploding  powder  in  holes 
drilled  at  the  bottom  of  water-wells  had  increased  the  quantity  of  fluid  or 
opened  new  veins  and  the  idea  of  trying  the  experiment  in  oil-wells  suggested 
itself  to  various  operators.  In  1860  Henry  H.  Dennis,  who  drilled  and  stuck 
the  tools  in  the  first  well  at  Tidioute,  procured  three  feet  of  two-inch  copper- 
pipe,  plugged  one  end,  filled  it  with  rifle-powder,  inserted  a  fuse-cord  and  ex- 
ploded the  charge  in  presence  of  six  men.  The  hole  was  full  of  water,  oil  and 
bits  of  rock  were  blown  into  the  air  and  "the  smell  of  oil  was  so  much  stronger 
that  people  coming  up  the  hollow  noticed  it."  The  same  year  John  F.  Harper 
endeavored  to  explode  five  pounds  of  powder  in  A.  W.  Raymond's  well,  at 
Franklin.  The  tin-case  holding  the  powder  collapsed  under  the  pressure  of  the 
water  and  the  fuse  had  gone  out.  William  Reed  assisted  Raymond  and  W. 
Ayers  Brashear,  who  had  expected  James  Barry — he  put  up  the  first  telegraph- 
line  between  Pittsburg  and  Franklin — to  fire  the  charge  by  electricity.  Reed 
developed  the  idea  and  invented  the  "Reed  Torpedo,"  which  he  used  in  a 
number  of  wells.  A  large  crowd  in  1866  witnessed  the  torpedoing  of  John  C. 


NITRO-GL  YCERINE  IN   THIS.  333 

Ford's  well,  on  the  Widow  Fleming  farm,  four  miles  south  of  Titusville.  Five 
pounds  of  powder  in  an  earthen  bottle,  attached  to  a  string  of  gas-pipe,  were 
exploded  at  two-hundred-and-fifty  feet  by  dropping  a  red-hot  iron  through  the 
pipe.  The  shock  threw  the  water  out  of  the  hole,  threw  out  the  pipe  with 
such  force  as  to  knock  down  the  walking-beam  and  samson-post,  agitated  the 
water  in  Oil  Creek  and  "sent  out  oil."  Tubing  was  put  in,  the  old  horse 
worked  the  pump  until  tired  out  and  the  result  encouraged  Ford  to  buy  ma- 
chinery to  keep  the  well  going  constantly.  This  was  the  first  successful  torpe- 
doing of  an  oil-well!  The  Watson  well,  near  by,  was  similarly  treated  by  Har- 
per, who  had  brought  four  bottles  of  the  powder  from  Franklin  and  was  devot- 
ing his  time  to  "blasting  wells."  For  his  services  at  the  Ford  well  he  received 
twenty  dollars.  Harper,  William  Skinner  and  a  man  named  Potter  formed  a 
partnership  for  this  purpose.  They  torpedoed  the  Adams  well,  on  the  Stack- 
pole  farm,  below  the  Fleming,  putting  the  powder  in  a  glass-bottle.  The  terri- 
tory was  dry  and  no  oil  followed  the  explosion.  In  the  fall  of  1860  they  shot 
Gideon  B.  Walker's  well  at  Tidioute.  Five  torpedoes  were  exploded  in  1860 
at  Franklin,  Tidioute  and  on  Oil  Creek.  Business  was  disturbed  over  the 
grave  political  outlook,  oil  was  becoming  too  plentiful,  the  price  was  merely 
nominal  and  the  torpedo-industry  languished. 

William  F.  Kingsbury  advertised  in  1860  that  he  would  "put  blasts  in  oil- 
wells  to  increase  their  production."  He  torpedoed  a  well  in  1861  on  the  island 
at  Tidioute,  using  a  can  of  powder  and  a  fuse,  which  ignited  perfectly.  Mark 
Wilson  and  L.  G.  Merrill  lectured  on  electricity  in  1860-61,  traveling  over  the 
country  and  exhibiting  the  principle  of  "Colt's  Submarine  Battery, "  by  which 
"the  rock  at  any  distance  beneath  the  surface  of  the  earth  may  be  rent  asunder, 
thereby  enabling  the  oil  to  flow  to  the  well."  Frederick  Crocker  in  1864  ar- 
ranged a  torpedo  to  be  dropped  into  a  well  and  fired  by  a  pistol-cartridge  in- 
serted in  the  bottom  of  the  tin-shell.  About  thirty  torpedoes  were  exploded 
from  1860  to  1865,  all  of  them  in  wells  filled  with  water,  which  served  as  tamp- 
ing. Erastus  Jones,  James  K.  Jones  and  David  Card  exploded  them  in  wells  at 
Liverpool,  Ohio.  Joseph  Chandler  handled  two  or  three  at  Pioneer  and 
George  Koch  fired  one  of  his  own  construction  in  May  of  1864.  Mr.  Beardslee 
— he  struck  a  vein  of  water  by  drilling  a  hole  five  feet  and  exploding  a  case  of 
powder  at  the  bottom  of  a  well  in  1844,  near  Rochester,  N.  Y. — came  to  the  oil- 
region  and  put  in  a  score  of  shots  in  1865.  As  long  ago  as  1808  the  yield  of 
water  in  a  well  at  Fort  Regent  was  doubled  by  drilling  a  small  hole  and  firing 
a  quantity  of  powder.  A  flowing-well  on  the  lease  beside  the  Crocker  stopped 
when  the  latter  was  torpedoed  and  was  rigged  for  pumping.  It  pumped  ' '  black 
powder-water,"  showing  that  the  torpedo  had  opened  an  underground  con- 
nection between  the  two  wells,  the  effects  of  the  explosion  reaching  from  the 
Crocker  to  its  neighbor.  William  Reed  made  a  can  strong  enough  to  resist  the 
pressure  of  the  water,  let  it  down  the  Criswell  well  on  Cherry  Run  in  1863, 
failed  to  discharge  it  by  electricity  and  exploded  it  by  sliding  a  hollow  weight 
down  a  string  to  strike  a  percussion-cap. 

Notwithstanding  these  facts,  which  demonstrated  that  the  yield  of  oil  and 
water  had  been  increased  by  exploding  powder  hundreds  of  feet  under  water, 
in  November  of  1864  Col.  E.  A.  L.  Roberts  applied  for  a  patent  for  "  a  process 
of  increasing  the  productiveness  of  oil-wells  by  causing  an  explosion  of  gun- 
powder or  its  equivalent  at  or  near  the  oil-bearing  point,  in  connection  with  su- 
perincumbent fluid  tamping."  He  claimed  that  the  action  of  a  shell  at  Fred- 
ericksburg  in  1862,  which  exploded  in  a  mill-race,  suggested  to  him  the  idea  of 


334  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE   OIL. 

bombarding  oil-wells.  However  this  may  be—  it  has  been  said  he  was  not  at 
Fredericksburg  at  the  date  specified  in  his  papers — the  Colonel  furnished  no 
drawings  and  presented  no  application  for  Letters  Patent  for  over  two  years. 
He  constructed  six  of  his  torpedoes  and  arrived  with  them  at  Titusville  in  Jan- 
uary of  1865.  Captain  Mills  permitted  him  to  test  his  process  in  the  Ladies' 
well,  near  Titusville,  on  January  twenty-first.  Two  torpedoes  were  exploded 
and  the  well  flowed  oil  and  paraffine.  Reed,  Harper  and  three  or  four  others 
filed  applications  for  patents  and  commenced  proceedings  for  interference. 
The  suits  dragged  two  years,  were  decided  in  favor  of  Roberts  and  he  secured 
the  patent  that  was  to  become  a  grievous  monopoly. 

A  company  was  organized  in  New  York  to  construct  torpedoes  and  carry 
on  the  business  extensively.  Operators  were  rather  sceptical  as  to  the  advan- 
tages of  the  Roberts  method,  fearing  the  missiles  would  shatter  the  rock  and 
destroy  the  wells.  The  Woodin  well,  a  dry-hole  on  the  Blood  farm,  received 
two  injections  and  pumped  eighty  barrels  a  day  in  December  of  1866.  During 
1867  the  demand  increased  largely  and  many  suits  for  infringements  were  en- 
tered. Roberts  seemed  to  have  the  courts  on  his  side  and  he  obtained  injunc- 
tions against  the  Reed  Torpedo-Company  and  James  Dickey  for  alleged 
infringements.  Justices  Strong  and  McKennan  decided  against  Dickey  in  1871. 
Producers  subscribed  fifty-thousand  dollars  to  break  down  the  Roberts  patent 
and  confidently  expected  a  favorable  issue.  Judge  Grier,  of  Philadelphia, 
mulcted  the  Reed  Company  in  heavy  damages.  Nickerson  and  Hamar,  inge- 
nious, clever  fellows,  fared  similarly.  Roberts  substituted  Nitro-Glycerine  for 
gunpowder  and  established  a  manufactory  of  the  explosive  near  Titusville. 
The  torpedo-war  became  general,  determined  and  uncompromising.  The  mo- 
nopoly charged  exorbitant  prices — two-hundred  dollars  for  a  medium  shot — 
and  an  army  of  "moonlighters" — nervy  men  who  put  in  torpedoes  at  night — 
sprang  into  existence.  The  "moonlighters"  effected  great  improvements  and 
first  used  the  "go-devil  drop-weight"  in  the  Butler  field  in  1876.  The  Roberts 
crowd  hired  a  legion  of  spies  to  report  operators  who  patronized  the  nocturnal 
well-shooters.  The  country  swarmed  with  these  emissaries.  You  couldn't 
spit  in  the  street  or  near  a  well  after  dark  without  danger  of  hitting  one  of  the 
crew.  Unexampled  litigation  followed.  About  two-thousand  prosecutions 
were  threatened  and  most  of  them  begun  against  producers  accused  of  violat- 
ing the  law  by  engaging  "moonlighters."  The  array  of  counsel  was  most 
imposing.  It  included  Bakewell  &  Christy,  of  Pittsburg,  and  George  Harding, 
of  Philadelphia,  for  the  torpedo-company.  Kellar  &  Blake,  of  New  York,  and 
General  Benjamin  F.  Butler  were  retained  by  a  number  of  defendants.  Most 
of  the  individual  suits  were  settled,  the  annoyance  of  trying  them  in  Pittsburg, 
fees  of  lawyers  and  enormous  costs  inducing  the  operators  to  make  such  terms 
as  they  could.  By  this  means  the  coffers  of  the  company  were  filled  to  over- 
flowing and  the  Roberts  Brothers  rolled  up  millions  of  dollars. 

The  late  H.  Bucher  Swope,  the  brilliant  district-attorney  of  Pittsburg,  was 
especially  active  in  behalf  of  Roberts.  The  bitter  feeling  engendered  by  con- 
victions deemed  unjust,  awards  of  excessive  damages  and  numerous  imprison- 
ments found  expression  in  pointed  newspaper  paragraphs.  Col.  Roberts  pre- 
served in  scrap-books  every  item  regarding  his  business-methods,  himself  and 
his  associates.  One  poetical  squib,  written  by  me  and  printed  in  the  Oil-City 
Times,  incensed  him  to  the  highest  pitch  and  was  quoted  by  Mr.  Swope  in  an 
argument  before  Judge  McKennan.  The  old  Judge  bristled  with  fury.  Evi- 
dently he  regretted  that  it  was  beyond  his  power  to  sentence  somebody  to  the 


NITRO-GLYCERINE  IN  THIS.  335 

penitentiary  for  daring  hint  that  law  was  not  always  justice.  He  had  not 
traveled  quite  so  far  on  the  tyrannical  road  as  some  later  wearers  of  the  ermine, 
who,  "dressed  in  a  little  brief  authority,  play  such  fantastic  tricks  before  high 
heaven  as  make  the  angels  weep  "  and  consign  workingmen  to  limbo  for  pre- 
suming to  present  the  demands  of  organized  labor  to  employers  !  It  is  not 
Eugene  V.  Debs  or  the  mouthing  anarchist,  but  the  overbearing  corporation- 
tool  on  the  bench,  who  is  guilty  of  "contempt  of  court." 

The  Roberts  patent  re-issued  in  June  of  1873,  perpetuating  the  burdensome 
load  upon  oil-producers.  In  November  of  1876  suit  was  brought  in  the  Circuit 
Court  against  Peter  Schreiber,  of  Oil  City,  charged  with  infringing  the  Roberts 
process.  Schreiber' s  torpedo  duplicated  the  unpatented  Crocker  cartridge  and 
Roberts  wanted  his  scalp.  The  case  was  contested  keenly  four  years,  coming 
up  for  final  argument  in  May  of  1879.  Henry  Baldwin  and  James  C.  Boyce,  of 
Oil  City,  and  Hon.  J.  H.  Osmer,  of  Franklin,  were  the  defendant's  attorneys. 
Mr.  Boyce  collected  a  mass  of  testimony  that  seemed  overwhelming.  He  spent 
years  working  up  a  masterly  defense.  By  unimpeachable  witnesses  he  proved 
that  explosives  had  been  used  in  water-wells  and  oil-wells,  substantially  in  the 
manner  patented  by  Roberts,  years  before  the  holder  of  the  patent  had  been 
heard  of  as  a  torpedoist.  But  his  masterly  efforts  were  wasted  upon  Justices 
Strong  and  McKennan.  They  had  sustained  the  monopoly  in  the  previous  suits 
and  apparently  would  not  reverse  themselves,  no  matter  how  convincing  the 
reasons.  Mr.  Schreiber,  wearied  by  the  law's  interminable  delays  and  thirty- 
thousand  dollars  of  expenditure,  decided  not  to  suffer  the  further  annoyance  of 
appealing  to  the  United-States  Supreme  Court.  The  great  body  of  producers, 
disgusted  with  the  courts  and  despairing  of  fair-play,  did  not  care  to  provide  the 
funds  to  carry  the  case  to  the  highest  tribunal  and  lock  it  up  for  years  awaiting 
a  hearing.  The  flood  of  light  thrown  upon  it  by  Boyce's  researches  had  the 
effect  of  preventing  an  extension  of  the  patent  and  reducing  the  price  of  tor- 
pedoes, thus  benefiting  the  oil-region  greatly.  Mr.  Boyce  is  now  practicing  his 
profession  in  Pittsburg.  He  resided  at  Oil  City  for  years  and  was  noted  for  his 
bright  wit,  his  incisive  logic,  his  profound  interest  in  education  and  his  social 
accomplishments. 

Col.  Edward  A.  L.  Roberts  died  at  Titusville  on  Friday  morning,  March 
twenty-fifth,  1881,  after  a  short  illness.  His  demise  was  quite  unexpected,  as 
he  continued  in  ordinary  health  until  Tuesday  night.  Then  he  was  seized  with 
intermittent  fever,  which  rapidly  gained  ground  until  it  proved  fatal.  A  mo- 
ment before  dissolution  he  asked  Dr.  Freeman,  who  was  with  him,  for  a  glass 
of  water.  Drinking  it  and  staring  intently  at  the  doctor,  his  eyes  filled  with 
tears  and  he  said,  "  I  am  gone."  Pressing  back  upon  the  pillow,  he  expired 
almost  instantly.  Col.  Roberts  was  born  at  Moreau,  Saratoga  county,  New 
York,  in  1829.  At  seventeen  he  enlisted  as  a  private,  served  with  commend- 
able bravery  in  the  Mexican  war  and  was  honorably  discharged  after  a  ser- 
vice of  two  years.  Returning  to  his  native  place,  he  entered  an  academy 
and  passed  several  years  acquiring  a  higher  education.  Subsequently  he  en- 
tered the  dental  office  of  his  brother  at  Poughkeepsie,  N.  Y.  Still  later  he 
removed  to  the  city  and  with  his  brother,  W.  B.  Roberts,  engaged  in  the  manu- 
facture of  dental  material.  For  his  improvements  in  dental  science  and  articles 
he  was  awarded  several  gold-medals  by  the  American  Institute.  He  patented 
various  inventions  that  have  been  of  great  service  and  are  now  in  general  use. 
In  the  oil-region  he  was  best  known  as  the  owner  of  the  torpedo-patent  bear- 
ing his  name.  He  came  to  Titusville  in  January  of  1865  and  the  same  month 


336 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


exploded  two  shells  in  the  Ladies'  well,  increasing  its  yield  largely.  From 
that  time  to  the  present  the  use  of  torpedoes  has  continued.  The  litigation 
over  the  patent  and  infringements  attracted  widespread  attention.  The  last 
week  of  his  life  Col.  Roberts  said  he  had  expended  a  quarter-million  dollars  in 
torpedo-litigation.  He  was  responsible  for  more  lawsuits  than  any  other  man 
in  the  United  States.  A  man  of  many  eccentricities  and  strong  feelings,  he  was 
always  liberal  and  enterprising.  He  left  a  large  fortune  and  one  of  the  most 
profitable  monopolies  in  the  State.  In  1869  he  married  Mrs.  Chase,  separated 
from  her  in  1877  and  lived  at  the  Brunswick  Hotel.  His  widow  and  two  chil- 
dren survived  him.  Col.  Roberts  did  much  to  build  up  Titusville  and  his 
funeral  was  the  largest  the  town  has  ever  witnessed.  He  sleeps  in  the  pretty 
cemetery  and  a  peculiar  monument,  emblematic  of  the  torpedo,  marks  the 
burial-plot. 

On  the  palatial  Hotel  Brunswick,  which  he  built  and  nurtured  as  the  apple 
of  his  eye,  Col.  Roberts  lavished  part  of  his  wealth.  He  decorated  and  fur- 
nished it  gorgeously  from  cellar  to  roof.  The  appointments  were  luxurious 
throughout,  if  the  landlords  he  engaged  could  not  meet  expenses,  the  Colonel 
paid  the  deficiency  ungrudgingly  and  sawed  wood.  Finally  the  house  was 
conducted  in  business-style  and  paid  handsomely.  For  years  it  has  been  run 

by  Charles  J.  An- 
drews, who  was  born 
with  a  talent  for  ho- 
tel-keeping. "Char- 
lie" is  well-known  in 
every  nook  and  cor- 
ner of  Pennsylvania 
as  a  "jolly  good  fel- 
low, "keen  politician 
and  all-round  thor- 
oughbred. He  has 
the  rare  faculty  of 
winning  friends  and 
of  engineering  bills 
through  the  Legisla- 
ture. He  is  head  of 
the  Liquor  League, 
a  tireless  worker,  a 
masterly  joker  and 
brimming  over  with 
pat-stories  that  do 

not  strike  back.  He  operates  in  oil  and  base-ball  as  a  diversion,  is  a  familiar 
figure  in  Philadelphia  and  Harrisburg  and  popular  everywhere. 

Dr.  Walter  B.  Roberts,  partner  of  his  brother  in  the  torpedo-company, 
clerked  in  an  Albany  bank,  taught  district-school,  studied  medicine  and  rose  to 
eminence  in  dentistry.  Visiting  Nicaragua  in  1853,  ne  established  a  firm  to 
ship  deer-skins  and  cattle-hides  to  the  United  States  and  built  up  a  large  trade 
with  Central  America.  Resuming  his  practice,  he  and  E.  A.  L.  Roberts 
opened  dental-rooms  in  New  York.  His  brother  enlisted  and  upon  returning 
from  the  war  assigned  the  Doctor  a  half-interest  in  a  torpedo  for  oil-wells  he 
desired  to  patent.  In  1865  Dr.  Roberts  organized  the  Roberts  Torpedo-Com- 
pany, was  chosen  its  secretary  in  1866  and  its  president  in  1867.  He  visited 


NITRO-GLYCERINE  IN   THIS.  337 

Europe  in  1867  and  removed  to  Titusville  in  1868,  residing  there  until  his  death. 
In  1872  he  was  elected  mayor,  but  his  intense  longing  for  a  seat  in  Congress 
was  never  gratified.  The  oil-producers,  whom  the  vexatious  torpedo-suits 
made  hot  under  the  collar,  opposed  him  resolutely.  He  had  succeeded  in  his 
profession  and  his  business  and  his  crowning  ambition  was  to  go  to  Washing- 
ton. The  arrow  of  political  disappointment  pricked  his  temper  at  times,  al- 
though to  the  last  he  supported  the  Republican  party  zealously.  Dr.  Roberts 
was  a  man  of  marked  characteristics,  tall,  stoutly  built  and  vigorous  mentally. 
He  did  much  to  advance  the  interests  of  his  adopted  city  and  was  respected  for 
his  courage,  his  earnestness  and  his  benevolence  to  the  poor. 

Hon.  William  H.  Andrews  managed  the  campaign  of  Dr.  Roberts,  who 
fancied  the  adroitness,  pluck  and  push  of  the  coming  leader  and  used  his  in- 
fluence to  elect  him  chairman  of  the  Crawford-County  Republican  Committee. 
He  performed  the  duties  so  capably  that  he  served  four  terms,  was  secretary  of 
the  State  Committee  in  1887-8  and  its  chairman  in  1890-1.  Mr.  Andrews  was 
born  in  Warren  county  and  at  an  early  age  entered  upon  a  mercantile  career. 
He  established  large  dry-goods  stores  at  Titusville,  Franklin  and  Meadville, 
introduced  modern  ideas  and  did  a  tremendous 
business.  He  advertised  by  the  page,  ran  ex-  ^'^ 

cursion-trains  at  suitable  periods  and  sold  his 
wares  at  prices  to  attract  multitudes  of  cus- 
tomers. Nobody  ever  heard  of  dull  trade  or 
hard  times  at  any  of  the  Andrews  stores.  Re- 
moving to  Cincinnati,  he  opened  the  biggest 
store  in  the  city  and  forced  local  merchants  to 
crawl  out  of  the  old  rut  and  hustle.  But  the 
aroma  of  petroleum",  the  motion  of  the  walking- 
beam,  the  dash  and  spirit  of  oil-region  life  were 
lacking  in  Porkopolis  and  Andrews  returned  to 
Titusville.  He  engaged  in  politics  with  the  ar- 
dor he  had  displayed  in  trade.  His  skill  as  an 
organizer  saved  the  Congressional  district  from 
the  Greenbackers  and  won  him  the  chairman- 
ship of  the  Republican  State-Committee.  He 

served  two  terms  in  the  Legislature  and  was  elected  to  the  Senate  in  1894. 
He  is  chairman  of  the  senatorial  committee  appointed  last  session  to  "Lexow" 
Philadelphia  and  Pittsburg.  His  brother,  W.  R.  Andrews,  edits  the  Meadville 
Tribune  and  is  secretary  of  the  State  Committee.  Another,  Charles  J.  An- 
drews, is  proprietor  of  the  Hotel  Brunswick  and  an  active  politician.  Senator 
Andrews  rarely  wastes  his  breath  on  long-winded  speeches,  wisely  preferring  to 
do  effective  work  in  committee.  No  member  of  the  House  or  Senate  is  more 
influential,  more  ready  to  oblige  his  friends,  more  sought  for  favors  and  surer 
of  carrying  through  a  bill.  He  enjoys  the  confidence  of  Senator  Quay  and  his 
next  promotion  may  be  to  the  United-States  Senate  as  successor  of  J.  Donald 
Cameron.  Mr.  Andrews  lives  at  Titusville,  has  oil-wells  on  Church  Run  and  a 
big  farm  in  the  suburbs,  is  prominent  in  local  industries  and  a  representative 
citizen. 

Gradually  the  quantity  of  explosive  in  a  torpedo  was  increased,  in  order  to 
shatter  a  wider  area  of  oil-bearing  rock.  A  hundred  quarts  of  Nitro-Glycerine 
have  been  used  for  a  single  shot.  In  such  instances  it  is  lowered  into  the  well 
in  cans,  one  resting  upon  another  at  the  bottom  of  the  hole  until  the  desired 


338  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE   OIL. 

amount  is  in  place.  A  cap  is  adjusted  to  the  top  of  the  last  can,  the  cord  that 
lowered  the  Nitro-Glycerine  is  pulled  up,  a  weight  is  dropped  upon  the  cap  and 
an  explosion  equal  to  the  force  of  a  ton  of  gunpowder  ensues.  In  a  few  sec- 
onds a  shower  of  water,  oil,  mud  and  pebbles  ascends,  saturating  the  derrick 
and  pelting  broken  stones  in  every  direction.  Frank  H.  Taylor  graphically  de- 
scribes a  scene  at  Thorn  Creek  : 

"  On  October  twenty-seventh,  1884,  those  who  stood  at  the  brick  school-house  and  telegraph- 
offices  in  theThorn  Creek  district  and  saw  the  Semple,  Boyd  &  Armstrong  No.  2  torpedoed, gazed 
upon  the  grandest  scene  ever  witnessed  in  Oildom.  When  the  shot  took  effect  and  the  barren  rock, 
as  if  smitten  by  the  rod  of  Moses,  poured  forth  its  torrent  of  oil,  it  was  such  a  magnificent  and  awful 
spectacle  that  no  painter's  brush  or  poet's  pen  could  do  it  justice.  Men  familiar  with  the  won- 
derful sights  of  the  oil-country  were  struck  dumb  with  astonishment,  as  they  beheld  the  mighty 
display  of  Nature's  forces.  There  was  no  sudden  reaction  after  the  torpedo  was  exploded.  A 
column  of  water  rose  eight  or  ten  feet  and  fell  back  again,  some  time  elapsed  before  the  force  of 
the  explosion  emptied  the  hole  and  the  burnt  glycerine,  mud  and  sand  rushed  up  in  the  derrick  in 
a  black  stream.  The  blackness  gradually  changed  to  yellow;  then,  with  a  mighty  roar,  the  gas 
burst  forth  with  a  deafening  noise,  like  the  thunderbolt  set  free.  Fora  moment  the  cloud  of  gas 
hid  the  derrick  from  sight  and  then,  as  this  cleared  away,  a  solid  golden  column  half-a-foot  in 
diameter  shot  from  the  derrick-floor  eighty  feet  through  the  air,  till  it  broke  in  fragments  on  the 
crown-pulley  and  fell  in  a  shower  of  yellow  rain  for  rods  around.  For  over  an  hour  that  grand 
column  of  oil,  rushing  swifter  than  any  torrent  and  straight  as  a  mountain  pine,  united  derrick- 
floor  and  top.  In  a  few  moments  the  ground  around  the  derrick  was  covered  inches  deep  with 
petroleum.  The  branches  of  the  oak-trees  were  like  huge  yellow  plumes  and  a  stream  as  large  as 
a  man's  body  ran  down  the  hill  to  the  road.  It  filled  the  space  beneath  the  small  bridge  and, 
continuing  down  the  hill  through  the  woods  beyond,  spread  out  upon  the  flats  where  the  Johnson 
well  is.  In  two  hours  these  flats  were  covered  with  a  flood  of  oil.  The  hill-side  was  as  if  a 
yellow  freshet  had  passed  over  it.  Heavy  clouds  of  gas,  almost  obscuring  the  derrick,  hung  low 
in  the  woods,  and  still  that  mighty  rush  continued.  Some  of  those  who  witnessed  it  estimated 
the  well  to  be  flowing  five-hundred  barrels  per  hour.  Dams  were  built  across  the  stream,  that  its 
production  might  be  estimated  ;  the  dams  overflowed  and  were  swept  away  before  they  could  be 
completed.  People  living  along  Thorn  Creek  packed  up  their  household-goods  and  fled  to  the 
hill-sides.  The  pump-station,  a  mile-and-a-half  down  the  creek,  had  to  extinguish  its  fires  that 
night  on  account  of  gas.  All  fires  around  the  district  were  put  out.  It  was  literally  a  flood  of  oil. 
It  was  estimated  that  the  production  was  ten-thousand  barrels  the  first  twenty-four  hours.  The 
foreman,  endeavoring  to  get  the  too's  into  the  well,  was  overcome  by  the  gas  and  fell  under  the 
bull-wheels.  He  was  rescued  immediately  and  medical  aid  summond.  He  remained  unconcious 
two  hours,  but  subsequently  recovered  fully.  Several  men  volunteered  to  undertake  the  job  of 
shutting  in  the  largest  well  ever  struck  in  the  oil-region.  The  packer  for  the  oil-saver  was  tied 
on  the  bull-wheel  shaft,  the  tools  were  placed  over  the  hole  and  run  in.  But  the  pressure  of  the 
solid  strram  of  oil  against  it  prevented  its  going  lower,  even  with  the  suspended  weight  of  the 
two-thousand-pound  tools.  One-thousand  pounds  additional  weight  were  added  before  the  cap 
was  fitted  and  the  well  closed.  A  casing-connection  and  tubing- lines  connected  the  well  with  a 
tank  " 

Had  the  owners  not  torpedoed  this  well,  which  they  believed  to  be  dry,  its 
value  would  never  have  been  known.  Its  conceded  failure  would  have  chilled 
ambitious  operators  who  held  adjoining  leases  and  changed  the  entire  history 
of  Thorn  Creek. 

Torpedoing  wells  is  a  hazardous  business.  A  professional  well-shooter 
must  have  nerves  of  iron,  be  temperate  in  his  habits  and  keenly  alive  to  the  fact 
that  a  careless  movement  or  a  misstep  may  send  him  flying  into  space.  James 
Sanders,  a  veteran  employ^  of  the  Roberts  Company,  fired  six- thousand  tor- 
pedoes without  the  slightest  accident  and  lived  for  years  after  his  well-earned 
retirement.  Nitro-Glycerine  literally  tears  its  victims  into  shreds.  It  is  quick 
as  lightning  and  can't  be  dodged.  The  first  fatality  from  its  use  in  the  oil-regions 
befell  William  Munson,  in  the  summer  of  1867,  at  Reno.  He  operated  on 
Cherry  Run,  owning  wells  near  the  famous  Reed  and  Wade.  He  was  one 
of  the  earliest  producers  to  use  torpedoes  and  manufactured  them  under  the 
Reed  patent.  A  small  building  at  the  bend  of  the  Allegheny  below  Reno 


NITRO-GLYCERINE  IN   THIS. 


339 


WILLIAM   MUNSON. 


served  as  his  workshop  and  storehouse.     For  months  the  new  industry  went 
along  quietly,  its  projector  prospering  as  the  result  of  his  enterprise.     Entering 
the  building  one  morning  in  August,  he  was  seen  no  more.     How  it  occurred 
none  could  tell,  but  a  frightful  explosion  shivered  the  building,  tore  a  hole  in 
the  ground  and  annihilated  Munson.     Houses  trembled  to  their  foundations, 
dishes  were  thrown  from  the  shelves,  windows 
were  shattered  and  about  Oil  City  the  horrible 
shock  drove  people  frantically  into  the  streets. 
Not  a  trace  of  Munson's  premises  remained, 
while  fragments  of  flesh  and  bone  strewn  over 
acres  of  ground  too  plainly  revealed  the  dread- 
ful fate  of  the  proprietor     The  mangled  bits 
were  carefully  gathered  up,  put  in  a  small  box 
and  sent  to  his  former  home  in  New  York  for 
interment.  The  tragedy  aroused  profound  sym- 
pathy.    Mentally,  morally  and  physically  Wil- 
liam Munson  was  a  fine  specimen  of  manhood, 
thoroughly  upright  and  trustworthy.     He  lived 
at   Franklin  and   belonged  to  the    Methodist 
church.    His  widow  and  two  daughters  survived 
the  fond  husband  and  father.    Mrs.  Munson  first 
moved   to  California,  then  returned  eastward 
and  she  is  now  practicing  medicine  at  Toledo,  the  home  of  her  daughters,  the 
younger  of  whom  married  Frank  Gleason. 

The  sensation  produced  by  the  first  fatality  had  not  entirely  subsided  when 
the  second  victim  was  added  to  a  list  that  has  since  lengthened  appallingly.  To 
ensure  conparative  safety  the  deadly  stuff  was  kept  in  magazines  located  in  iso- 
lated places.  In  1867  the  Roberts  Company  built  one  of  these  receptacles  two 
miles  from  Titusville,  in  the  side  of  a  hill  excavated  for  the  purpose.  Thither 
Patrick  Brophy,  who  had  charge,  went  as  usual  one  fine  morning  in  July  of  1868. 
An  hour  later  a  terrific  explosion  burst  upon  the  surrounding  country  with  inde- 
scribable violence.  Horses  and  people  on  the  streets  of  Titusville  were  thrown 
down,  chimneys  tumbled,  windows  dropped  into  atoms  and  for  a  time  the  panic 
was  fearful.  Then  the  thought  suggested  itself  that  the  glycerine-magazine  had 
blown  up.  At  once  thousands  started  for  the  spot.  The  site  had  been  con- 
verted into  a  huge  chasm,  with  tons  of  dirt  scattered  far  and  wide.  Branches 
of  trees  were  lopped  off  as  though  cut  by  a  knife  and  hardly  a  particle  could 
be  found  of  what  had  so  recently  been  a  sentient  being,  instinct  with  life  and 
feeling  and  fondly  anticipating  a  happy  career.  The  unfortunate  youth  bore  an 
excellent  character  for  sobriety  and  carefulness.  He  was  a  young  Irishman, 
had  been  a  brakeman  on  the  Farmers'  Railroad  and  visited  the  magazine  fre- 
quently to  make  experiments. 

On  Church  Run,  two  miles  back  of  Titusville,  Colonel  Davison  established 
a  torpedo-manufactory  in  1868.  A  few  months  passed  safely  and  then  the  trag- 
edy came.  With  three  workmen — Henry  Todd,  A.  D.  Griffin  and  William  Bills 
— Colonel  Davison  went  to  the  factory,  as  was  his  practice,  one  morning  in  Sep- 
tember. A  torpedo  must  have  burst  in  course  of  filling,  causing  sad  destruc- 
tion. The  building  was  knocked  into  splinters,  burying  the  occupants  beneath 
the  ruins.  All  around  the  customary  evidences  of  havoc  were  presented,  al- 
though the  sheltered  position  of  the  factory  prevented  much  damage  to  Titus- 
ville. The  mangled  bodies  of  his  companions  were  extricated  from  the  wreck. 


340  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

while  Colonel  Davison  still  breathed.  He  did  not  regain  consciousness  and 
death  closed  the  chapter  during  the  afternoon.  This  dismal  event  produced  a 
deep  impression,  the  extinction  of  four  lives  investing  it  with  peculiar  interest  to 
the  people  of  Oildom,  many  of  whom  knew  the  victims  and  sincerely  lamented 
their  mournful  exit. 

Dr.  Fowler,  the  seventh  victim,  met  his  doom  at  Franklin  in  1869.  He  had 
erected  a  magazine  on  the  hill  above  the  Allegheny  Valley  depot,  in  which  large 
quantities  of  explosives  were  stored.  With  his  brother  Charles  the  Doctor 
started  for  the  storehouse  one  forenoon.  At  the  river-bridge  a  friend  detained 
Charles  for  a  few  moments  in  conversation,  the  Doctor  proceeding  alone.  What 
happened  prior  to  the  shock  will  not  be  revealed  until  all  secrets  are  laid  bare, 
but  before  Charles  reached  the  magazine  a  tremendous  explosion  launched  his 
brother  into  eternity.  A  spectator  first  noticed  the  boards  of  the  building  flying 
through  space,  followed  in  a  moment  by  a  report  that  made  the  earth  quiver. 
The  nearest  properties  were  wrecked  and  the  jar  was  felt  miles  away.  Care- 
ful search  for  the  remains  of  the  poor  Doctor  resulted  in  a  small  lot  of  broken 
bones  and  pieces  of  flesh,  which  were  buried  in  the  Franklin  cemetery.  It  was 
supposed  that  the  catastrophe  originated  from  the  Doctor's  boots  coming  in  con- 
tact with  some  glycerine  that  may  have  leaked  upon  the  floor.  This  is  as  plau- 
sible a  reason  as  can  be  assigned  for  a  tragedy  that  brought  grief  to  many  loving 
hearts.  The  Doctor  was  a  genial,  kindly  gentleman  and  his  cruel  fate  was  uni- 
versally deplored. 

William  A.  Thompson,  of  Franklin,  left  home  on  Tuesday  morning,  Au- 
gust thirteenth,  1870,  carrying  in  his  buggy  a  torpedo  to  be  exploded  in  a  well 
on  the  Foster  farm.    John  Quinn  rode  with  him.     At  the  farm  he  received  two 
old  torpedoes,  which  had  been  there  five  or  six  weeks,  having  failed  to  explode, 
to  return  to  the  factory.     Quinn  came  up  the 
river  by  rail.     Thompson  stopped  at  Samuel 

^g^  Graham's,  Bully  Hill,  got  an  apple  and  lighted 

J0^~^^  a  cigar.     On  leaving  he  said  :     ' '  Good-bye, 

T»  Sam,  perhaps  you'll    never  see  me  again!" 

w 7?*    f~     iff  \       Five  minutes  later  an  explosion  was  heard  on 

the  Bully-Hill  road,  a  mile  from  where  Dr. 
Fowler  had  met  his  doom.  Graham  and  oth- 
ers hurried  to  the  spot.  The  body  of  Thomp- 
son, horribly  mutilated,  was  lying  fifty  feet 
from  the  road,  the  left  arm  severed  above  the 
elbow  and  missing.  The  horse  and  the  fore- 
wheels  of  the  buggy  were  found  a  hundred 
yards  off,  the  wounded  animal  struggling  that 
distance  before  he  fell.  The  body  and  hind- 

WILLIAM  A.   THOMPSON.  WheClS  °f   th<i    Vehide    ****    *"    SP1*"^.        One 

tire  hung  on  a  tree  and  a  boot  on  another. 

The  main  charge  of  the  torpedo  had  entered  the  victim's  left  side  above  the  hip 
and  the  face  was  scarcely  disfigured.  Mr.  Thompson  was  widely  known  and 
esteemed  for  his  social  qualities  and  high  character.  He  was  born  in  Clearfield 
county,  came  to  Franklin  in  1853,  married  in  1855  and  met  his  shocking  fate  at 
the  age  of  thirty-nine.  His  widow  and  a  daughter  live  at  Franklin. 

Thus  far  the  losses  of  human  life  were  occasioned  by  the  explosion  of  great 
quantities  of  the  messengers  of  death.  The  next  instance  demonstrated  the 
amazing  strength  of  Nitro-Glycerine  in  small  parcels,  a  few  drops  ending  the 


NITRO-GLYCERINE  IN   THIS.  341 

existence  of  a  vigorous  man  at  Scrubgrass,  Venango  county,  in  the  summer  of 
1870.  R.  W.  Redfield,  agent  of  a  torpedo-company,  hid  a  can  of  glycerine  in 
the  bushes,  expecting  to  return  and  use  it  the  following  day.  While  picking 
berries  Mrs.  George  Fetterman  saw  the  can  and  handed  it  to  her  husband. 
Thinking  it  was  lard-oil,  which  Nito-Glycerine  in  its  fluid  state  resembles  closely, 
Fetterman  poured  some  into  a  vessel  and  sent  it  to  his  wells.  It  was  used  as  a 
lubricant  for  several  days.  Noticing  a  heated  journal  one  morning,  Fetterman 
put  a  little  of  the  supposed  oil  on  the  axle,  with  the  engine  in  rapid  motion.  A 
furious  explosion  ensued,  tearing  the  engine-house  into  splinters  and  partially 
stunning  three  men  at  work  in  the  derrick.  Poor  Fetterman  was  found  shock- 
ingly mangled,  with  one  arm  torn  off  and  his  head  crushed  into  jelly.  The 
mystery  was  not  solved  for  hours,  when  it  occurred  to  a  neighbor  to  test  the 
contents  of  the  oil-can.  Putting  one  drop  on  an  anvil,  he  struck  it  a  heavy  blow 
and  was  hurled  to  the  earth  by  the  force  of  the  concussion.  The  can  was  a 
common  oiler,  holding  a  half-pint,  and  probably  not  a  dozen  drops  had  touched 
the  journal  before  the  explosion  took  place.  Fetterman  was  a  man  of  remark- 
able physical  power,  weighing  two-hundred-and  thirty  pounds  and  looking  the 
picture  of  health  and  vigor.  Yet  a  quarter-spoonful  of  nitro-glycerine  sufficed 
to  usher  him  into  the  hereafter  under  circumstances  particularly  distressing. 

In  the  fall  a  young  man  lost  his  life  almost  as  singularly  as  Fetterman.  He 
attended  a  well  at  Shamburg,  seven  miles  south  of  Titusville.  The  well  was 
torpedoed  on  a  cold  day.  To  thaw  the  glycerine  a  tub  was  filled  with  hot 
water,  into  which  the  cans  were  put.  When  sufficiently  thawed  they  were  taken 
out,  the  glycerine  was  poured  into  the  shell  and  the  torpedoing  was  done  satis- 
factorily. The  tubing  was  replaced  in  the  well  and  the  young  pumper  went  to 
turn  on  the  steam  to  start  the  engine,  carrying  a  pair  of  tongs  with  him.  He 
threw  the  tongs  into  the  tub  of  water.  In  an  instant  the  engine-house  was 
demolished  by  a  fierce  explosion.  The  luckless  youth  was  killed  and  his  body 
mangled.  A  small  amount  of  glycerine  must  have  leaked  from  the  cans  while 
they  were  thawing,  as  the  result  of  which  a  soul  was  hurried  into  the  presence 
of  its  Maker  with  alarming  suddenness. 

In  August  of  1871  Charles  Clarke  started  towards  Enterprise,  a  small  vil- 
lage in  Warren  county,  ten  miles  east  of  Titusville,  with  a  lot  of  glycerine  in  a 
vehicle  drawn  by  one  horse.  The  trip  was  destined  never  to  be  accomplished. 
By  the  side  of  a  high  hill  a  piece  of  very  rough  road  had  to  be  traveled.  There 
the  charge  exploded.  Likely  some  of  the  liquid  had  leaked  over  the  buggy 
and  springs  and  been  too  much  jolted.  The  concussion  was  awful.  Pieces  of 
the  woodwork  and  tires  were  carried  hundreds  of  yards.  Half  of  one  wheel 
lodged  near  the  top  of  a  large  tree  and  for  many  rods  the  forest  was  stripped  of 
its  foliage  and  branches.  Part  of  the  face,  with  the  mustache  and  four  teeth 
adhering,  was  the  largest  portion  of  the  driver  recovered  from  the  debris.  The 
horse  was  disemboweled  and  to  numerous  trees  lots  of  flesh  and  clothing  were 
sticking.  From  the  ghastly  spectacle  the  beholders  turned  away  shuddering. 
The  handful  of  remains  was  buried  reverently  at  Titusville,  crowds  of  people 
uniting  in  the  last  tribute  of  respect  to  "Charlie,"  whose  youth  and  intelligence 
had  made  him  a  general  favorite. 

A  case  similar  to  Thompson's  followed  a  few  weeks  after,  near  Rouseville. 
Descending  a  steep  hill  on  his  way  from  torpedoing  a  well  on  the  Shaw  farm, 
William  Pine  was  sent  out  of  the  world  unwarned.  He  had  a  torpedo-shell  and 
some  cans  of  glycerine  in  a  light  wagon  drawn  by  two  horses.  No  doubt,  the 
extreme  roughness  of  the  road  exploded  the  dangerous  freight.  The  body  of 


342  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

the  driver  was  distributed  in  minute  fragments  over  two  acres  and  the  buggy 
was  destroyed,  but  the  horses  escaped  with  slight  injury,  probably  because  the 
force  of  the  shock  passed  above  them  as  they  were  going  down  the  hill.  Pine 
had  a  premonition  of  impending  disaster.  When  leaving  home  he  kissed  his 
wife  affectionately  and  told  her  he  intended,  should  he  return  safely,  to  quit  the 
torpedo-business  forever  next  day.  He  was  an  industrious,  competent  young 
man,  deserving  of  a  better  fate. 

In  October  of  the  same  year  Charles  Palmer  was  blown  to  pieces  at  the 
Roberts  magazine,  near  Titusville,  where  Brophy  died  two  years  before.  With 
Captain  West,  agent  of  the  company,  he  was  removing  cans  of  glycerine  from 
a  wagon  to  the  magazine.  He  handled  the  cans  so  recklessly  that  West  warned 
him  to  be  more  careful.  He  made  thirteen  trips  from  the  wagon  and  entered 
the  magazine  for  the  fourteenth  time.  Next  instant  the  magazine  disappeared 
in  a  cloud  of  dust  and  smoke,  leaving  hardly  a  trace  of  man  or  material.  West 
happened  to  be  beside  the  wagon  and  escaped  unhurt.  The  horses  galloped 
furiously  through  Titusville,  the  cans  not  taken  out  bounding  around  in  the 
wagon.  Why  they  did  not  explode  is  a  mystery.  Had  they  done  so  the  city 
would  have  been  leveled  and  thousands  of  lives  lost.  Palmer  paid  dearly  for 
his  carelessness,  which  was  characteristic  of  the  rollicking,  light-hearted  fellow 
whose  existence  terminated  so  shockingly. 

This  thrilling  adventure  decided  Captain  West,  who  lived  at  Oil  City,  to 
engage  in  pursuits  more  congenial  to  himself  and  agreeable  to  his  devoted  fam- 
ily. He  was  finely  educated,  past  the  meridian  and  streaks  of  gray  tinged  his 
dark  hair  and  beard.  In  November  he  torpedoed  a  well  for  me  on  Cherry  Run. 
The  shell  stuck,  together  we  drew  it  up,  the  Captain  adjusted  the  cap  and  it  was 
then  lowered  and  exploded  successfully.  At  parting  he  shook  my  hand  warmly 
and  remarked  :  "This  is  the  last  torpedo  I  shall  put  in  for  you.  My  engage- 
ment with  the  company  will  end  next  week.  Good-bye.  Come  and  see  me  in 
Oil  City."  Three  days  later  he  went  to  shoot  a  well  at  Reno,  saying  to  his  wife 
at  starting  :  "  This  will  wind  up  my  work  for  the  company."  Such  proved  to  be 
the  fact,  although  in  a  manner  very  different  from  what  the  speaker  imagined. 
The  shell  was  lowered  into  the  well,  but  failed  to  explode  and  the  Captain  con- 
cluded to  draw  it  up  and  examine  the  priming.  Near  the  surface  it  exploded, 
instantly  killing  West,  who  was  guiding  the  line  attached  to  the  torpedo.  He 
was  hurled  into  the  air,  striking  the  walking-beam  and  falling  upon  the  derrick- 
floor  a  bruised  and  bleeding  corpse.  He  had,  indeed,  put  in  his  last  torpedo. 
The  main  force  of  the  explosion  was  spent  in  the  well,  otherwise  the  body  and 
the  derrick  would  have  been  blown  to  atoms.  A  tear  from  an  old  friend,  as  he 
recounts  the  tragic  close  of  an  honorable  career,  is  due  the  memory  of  a  man 
whose  sterling  qualities  were  universally  admired. 

Early  in  1873  two  young  lives  paid  the  penalty  at  Scrubgrass.  On  a  bright 
February  morning  "  Doc  "  Wright,  the  torpedo-agent,  stopped  at  the  station  to 
send  a  despatch.  The  message  sent,  he  invited  the  telegraph-operator,  George 
Wolfe,  to  ride  with  him  to  the  magazine,  a  mile  up  the  river.  The  two  set  out  in 
high  spirits,  two  dogs  following  the  sleigh.  Hardly  ten  minutes  elapsed  when  a 
dreadful  report  terrified  the  settlement.  From  the  magazine  on  the  river-bank 
a  light  smoke  ascended.  Two  rods  away  stood  the  trembling  horse,  one  eye 
torn  from  its  socket  and  his  side  lacerated.  Beside  him  one  dog  lay  lifeless. 
Fragments  of  the  cutter  and  the  harness  were  strewn  around  promiscuously. 
Through  the  bushes  a  clean  lane  was  cut  and  a  large  chestnut-tree  uprooted. 
A  deep  gap  alone  remained  of  the  magazine  and  scarcely  a  particle  of  the  two 


NITRO-GLYCERINE  IN   THIS.  343 

men  could  be  found.  Dozens  of  splintered  trees  across  the  Allegheny  indicated 
alike  the  force  and  general  direction  of  the  concussion.  A  boot  containing  part 
of  a  human  foot  was  picked  up  fifty  rods  from  the  spot.  Wright's  gold-watch, 
flattened  and  twisted,  was  fished  out  of  the  Allegheny,  two-hundred  yards  down 
the  stream,  in  May.  The  remains,  which  two  cigar-boxes  would  have  held,  were 
interred  close  by.  A  marble  shaft  marks  the  grave,  which  Col.  William  Phillips, 
then  president  of  the  Allegheny- Valley  Railroad,  enclosed  with  a  neat  iron-rail- 
ing. It  is  very  near  the  railway -track  and  the  bank  of  the  river,  a  short  distance 
above  Kennerdell  Station.  The  disaster  was  supposed  to  have  resulted  from 
Wright's  using  a  hatchet  to  loosen  a  can  of  glycerine  from  the  ice  that  held  it 
fast.  A  pet  spaniel,  which  had  a  habit  of  rubbing  against  his  legs  and  trying  to 
jump  into  his  arms,  accompanied  him  from  his  boarding-house.  The  animal 
may  have  diverted  his  attention  momentarily,  causing  him  to  miss  the  ice  and 
strike  the  can.  The  horse  lived  for  years,  not  much  the  worse  except  for  the 
loss  of  one  eye.  Wright  and  Wolfe  were  lively  and  jocular  and  their  sad  fate 
was  deeply  regretted.  Many  a  telegram  George  Wolfe  sent  for  me  when  Scrub- 
grass  was  at  full  tide. 

One  morning  in  April  of  1873  Dennis  Run,  a  half-mile  from  Tidioute,  ex- 
perienced a  fierce  explosion,  which  vibrated  buildings,  upset  dishes  and  broke 
windows  long  distances  off.  It  occurred  at  a  frame  structure  on  the  side  of  a 
hill,  occupied  by  Andrew  Dalrymple  as  a  dwelling  and  engine-house.  He  was 
a  "moonlighter,"  putting  in  torpedoes  at  night  to  avoid  detection  by  the  Rob- 
erts spotters,  and  was  probably  filling  a  shell  at  the  moment  of  the  explosion. 
It  knocked  the  tenement  into  toothpicks  and  killed  Dalrymple,  jamming  his 
head  and  the  upper  portion  of  the  trunk  against  an  adjacent  engine-house,  the 
roof  of  which  was  smeared  with  blood  and  particles  of  flesh.  One  arm  lay  in 
the  small  creek  four-hundred  feet  away,  but  not  a  vestige  of  the  lower  half  of 
the  body  could  be  discovered.  A  feeble  cry  from  the  ruins  of  the  building  sur- 
prised the  first  persons  to  reach  the  place.  Two  feet  beneath  the  rubbish  a 
child  twenty  months  old  was  found  unhurt.  Farther  search  revealed  Mrs. 
Dalrymple,  badly  mangled  and  unconscious.  She  lingered  two  hours.  The 
little  orphan,  too  young  to  understand  the  calamity  that  deprived  her  of  both 
parents,  was  adopted  by  a  wealthy  resident  of  Tidioute  and  grew  to  be  a  beau- 
tiful girl.  Thousands  viewed  the  sad  spectacle  and  followed  the  double  funeral 
to  the  cemetery.  It  has  been  my  fortune  to  witness  many  sights  of  this  descrip- 
tion, but  none  comprised  more  distressing  elements  than  the  sudden  summons 
of  the  doomed  husband  and  wife.  Mrs.  Dalrymple  was  the  only  woman  in  the 
oil-region  whom  Nitro-Glycerine  slaughtered. 

Is  there  a  sixth  sense,  an  indefinable  impression  that  prompts  an  action 
without  an  apparent  reason  ?  At  Petrolia  one  forenoon  something  impelled  me 
to  go  to  Tidioute,  a  hundred  miles  north,  and  spend  the  night.  Rising  from 
breakfast  at  the  Empire  House  next  morning,  a  loud  report,  as  though  a  bat- 
tery of  boilers  had  burst,  hurried  me  to  the  street.  Ten  minutes  later  found 
me  gazing  upon  the  Dalrymple  horror.  Was  the  cause  of  the  impulse  that 
started  me  from  Petrolia  explained  ?  An  hour  sufficed  to  help  rescue  the  child 
from  the  debris,  inspect  the  wreck,  glean  full  particulars  and  board  the  train  for 
Irvineton.  Writing  the  account  for  the  Oil-City  Derrick  at  my  leisure,  Post- 
master Evans  was  on  hand  with  a  report  of  the  inquest  when  the  evening-train 
reached  Tidioute.  The  Tidioute  Journal  didn't  like  the  Derrick  a  little  bit 
and  the  sight  of  a  young  man  running  from  its  office  towards  the  train,  with 
copies  of  the  paper — not  dry  from  the  press — attracted  my  attention.  Mr. 
23 


344  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

Evans  said  two  Titusville  reporters  had  come  over  during  the  day.  A  news- 
paper-man dearly  relishes  a  "  scoop  "  and  it  struck  me  at  once  that  the  Journal 
was  rushing  the  first  sheets  of  its  edition  to  the  Titusville  delegates.  Squeez- 
ing through  the  jam,  A.  E.  Fay,  of  the  Courier,  and  "Charlie"  Morse,  of  the 
Herald,  were  pocketing  the  copies  handed  them  by  the  Journal  youth.  Fay 
laughed  out  loud  and  said  :  "Well,  boys,  I  guess  the  Derrick' s  left  this  time  !" 
A  pat  on  the  shoulder  and  my  hint  to  "  guess  again"  fairly  paralyzed  the  trio. 
The  conductor  shouted  "all  aboard  "  and  the  train  moved  off.  Dropping  into 
the  seat  in  front  of  Fay,  his  annoyance  could  not  be  concealed.  It  relieved  him 
to  hear  me  tell  of  coming  through  from  the  north  and  ask  why  such  a  crowd 
had  gathered  at  Tidioute.  He  told  a  fairy-story  of  a  ball-game  and  his  own 
and  Morse's  visit  to  meet  a  friend  !  A  wish  for  a  glance  at  the  Tidioute  paper 
he  parried  by  answering  :  "  It's  yesterday's  issue  !"  Fay  was  a  good  fellow 
and  his  clumsy  falsifying  would  have  shamed  Ananias.  Keeping  him  on  the 
rack  was  rare  sport.  Clearly  he  believed  me  ignorant  of  the  torpedo-accident. 
The  moment  to  undeceive  him  arrived.  A  big  roll  of  manuscript  held  before 
his  eyes,  with  a  "  scare-head"  and  minute  details  of  the  tragedy,  prefaced  the 
query:  "Do  you  still  think  the  Derrick  is  badly  left?"  Many  friends  have 
asked  me :  "In  your  travels  through  the  oil-region  what  was  the  funniest 
thing  you  ever  saw?"  Here  is  the  answer:  The  dazed  look  of  Fay  as  he 
beneld  that  manuscript,  turned  red  and  white,  clenched  his  fists,  gritted  his 
teeth  and  hissed,  "Damn  you  !" 

John  Osborne,  a  youth  well-known  and  well-liked,  in  July  of  1874  drove  a 
buckboard  loaded  with  glycerine  down  Bear-Creek  Valley,  two  miles  below 
ParKer.  The  cargo  let  go  at  a  rough  piece  of  road  in  a  woody  ravine,  scatter- 
ing Osborne,  the  horse  and  the  vehicle  over  acres  of  tree-tops.  The  concus- 
sion was  felt  three  miles.  Venango,  Crawford,  Warren  and  Armstrong  coun- 
ties had  furnished  nearly  a  score  of  sacrifices  and  Butler  was  to  supply  the  next. 
Alonzo  Taylor,  young  and  unmarried,  went  in  the  summer  of  1875  to  torpedo 
a  well  at  Troutman.  The  drop-weight  failed  to  explode  the  percussion-cap 
and  Taylor  drew  up  the  shell,  a  process  that  had  cost  Captain  West  his  life  and 
was  always  risky.  He  got  it  out  safely  and  bore  the  torpedo  to  a  hill  to  exam- 
ine the  priming.  An  instant  later  a  frightful  explosion  stunned  the  neighbor- 
hood. Taylor  was  not  mangled  beyond  recognition,  as  the  charge  was  giant- 
powder  instead  of  Nitro-Glycerine.  Nor  was  the  damage  to  surrounding  ob- 
jects very  great,  owing  to  the  tendency  of  the  powder  to  expend  its  strength 
downward.  This  was  the  only  torpedo-fatality  of  the  year,  the  number  of  cas- 
ualties having  induced  greater  caution  in  handling  explosives. 

One  of  the  first  persons  to  reach  the  spot  and  gather  the  remains  of  Wil- 
liam Pine  was  his  friend  James  Barnum,  who  died  in  the  same  manner  at  St. 
Petersburg  eighteen  months  later.  Barnum  was  the  Roberts  agent  in  Clarion 
county.  On  February  twenty-third,  1876,  he  drove  to  Edenburg  for  three-hun- 
dred pounds  of  glycerine,  to  store  in  the  magazine  a  mile  from  St.  Petersburg. 
A  fearful  concussion,  which  the  writer  can  never  forget,  broke  hundreds  of 
windows  and  rocked  houses  to  their  foundations  at  six  o'clock  that  evening. 
To  the  magazine,  on  a  slope  sheltered  by  trees,  people  hastened.  A  huge 
iron-safe,  imbedded  in  a  cave  dug  into  the  hill,  was  the  repository  of  the  ex- 
plosives. Barnum  had  tied  his  team  to  a  small  tree  and  must  have  been  taking 
the  cans  from  the  wagon  to  the  safe.  A  yawning  cavity  indicated  the  site  of 
the  magazine.  Both  horses  lay  dead  and  disemboweled.  The  biggest  piece 
of  the  luckless  agent  would  not  weigh  two  pounds.  One  of  his  ears  was  found 


NITRO-GLYCERINE  IN   THIS.  345 

next  morning  a  half-mile  away.  The  few  remnants  were  collected  in  a  box 
and  buried  at  Franklin.  A  wife  and  several  children  mourned  poor  "Jim," 
who  was  a  lively,  active  young  man  and  had  often  been  warned  not  to  be  so 
careless  with  the  deadly  stuff.  Mrs.  Barnum  heard  the  explosion,  uttered  a 
piercing  shriek  and  ran  wildly  from  her  house  towards  the  magazine,  sure  her 
husband  had  been  killed. 

W.  H.  Harper,  who  received  a  patent  for  improvements  in  torpedoes,  went 
to  his  doom  at  Keating's  Furnace,  two  miles  from  St.  Petersburg,  in  July  of 
1876.  Drawing  an  unexploded  shell  from  a  well,  precisely  as  West  and  Taylor 
had  done,  he  stooped  down  to  examine  the  priming.  The  contents  exploded 
and  drove  pieces  of  the  tin-shell  deep  into  his  flesh  and  through  his  body. 
How  he  survived  nine  days  was  a  wonder  to  all  who  saw  the  dreadful  wounds 
of  the  unlucky  inventor. 

McKean  county  supplied  the  next  instance.  Repeated  attempts  were 
made  to  rob  a  large  magazine  on  the  Curtis  farm,  two  miles  south  of  Bradford. 
Incredible  as  it  may  seem,  the  key-hole  of  the  ponderous  iron-safe  in  the  hill- 
side was  several  times  stuffed  with  Nitro- Glycerine  and  a  long  fuse  and  a  slow 
match  applied  to  burst  the  door.  None  of  these  foolhardy  attempts  succeed- 
ing, on  the  night  of  September  fifteenth,  1877,  A.  V.  Pulser,  J.  B.  Burkholder, 
Andrew  P.  Higgins  and  Charles  S.  Page,  two  of  them  "moonlighters,"  it  is 
supposed  tried  pounding  the  lock  with  a  hammer.  At  any  rate,  they  exploded 
the  magazine  and  were  blown  to  fragments,  with  all  the  gruesome  accompani- 
ments incident  to  such  catastrophes.  That  men  would  imperil  their  lives  to 
loot  a  safe  of  Nitro-Glycerine  in  the  dark  beats  the  old  story  of  the  thief  who 
essayed  to  steal  a  red-hot  stove.  In  this  case  retribution  was  swift  and  terrible, 
but  a  magazine  at  St.  Petersburg  was  broken  open  and  plundered  successfully. 

Seventeen  days  later  J.  T.  Smith,  of  Titusville,  who  had  charge  of  a  maga- 
zine on  Bolivar  Run,  four  miles  from  Bradford,  lost  his  life  experimenting  with 
glycerine.  Col.  E.  A.  L.  Roberts  and  his  nephew,  Owen  Roberts,  stood  fifty 
yards  from  the  magazine  as  Smith  was  thrown  into  the  air  and  frightfully  man- 
gled. They  escaped  with  slight  bruises,  a  lively  shaking  up  and  a  hair-raising 
fright. 

The  summer  of  1878  was  a  busy  season  in  the  northern  field.  Foster-Brook 
Valley  was  at  the  hey-day  of  activity,  with  hundreds  of  wells  drilling  and  well- 
shooters  very  much  in  evidence.  Among  the  most  expert  men  in  the  employ 
of  the  Roberts  Company  was  J.  Bartlett,  of  Bradford.  He  went  to  Red  Rock, 
an  ephemeral  oil-town  six  miles  north-east  of  Bradford,  to  torpedo  a  well  in  rear 
of  the  McClure  House,  the  principal  hostelry.  Although  Bartlett's  reckless- 
ness was  the  source  of  uneasiness,  he  had  never  met  with  an  accident  and  was 
considered  extremely  fortunate.  It  was  a  rule  to  explode  the  cans  that  had 
held  the  glycerine  before  pouring  it  into  the  shell.  Bartlett  torpedoed  the  well, 
piled  wood  around  the  empty  cans  and  set  it  on  fire.  He  and  a  party  of  friends 
waited  at  the  hotel  for  the  cans  to  explode.  The  fire  had  burned  low  and  Bart- 
lett proceeded  to  investigate.  He  lifted  a  can  and  turned  it  over,  to  see  if  it 
contained  any  glycerine.  The  act  was  followed  by  an  explosion  that  shook 
every  house  in  the  town  and  shattered  numberless  windows.  Bartlett's  com- 
panions were  knocked  senseless  and  the  shooter  was  blown  one-hundred  feet. 
When  picked  up  by  several  men,  who  hurried  to  the  scene,  he  presented  a  hor- 
rible sight.  His  clothing  was  torn  to  ribbons  and  his  body  riddled  by  pieces  of 
tin.  The  right  arm  was  off  close  to  the  shoulder  and  the  right  leg  was  a  pulp. 
He  was  removed  to  a  boarding-house  and  died  in  great  agony  three  hours  after. 


346  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

Stories  of  hapless  "  moonlighters  "  scattered  to  the  four  winds  of  heaven 
were  recounted  frequently.  Their  business,  done  largely  under  cover  of 
darkness,  was  exceptionally  dangerous.  The  "  moonlighter"  did  not  haul  his 
load  in  a  wagon  openly  by  daylight.  He  would  place  two  ten-quart  cans  of 
glycerine  in  a  meal-sack,  sling  the  bag  over  his  shoulder  and  walk  to  the  scene 
of  his  intended  operations,  generally  at  night.  One  evening  in  the  spring  of 
1879  a  "moonlighter"  named  Reed  appeared  at  Red  Rock,  somewhat  intoxi- 
cated and  bearing  two  cans  of  glycerine  in  a  bag.  He  handled  the  bag  in  a 
style  that  struck  terror  to  the  hearts  of  all  onlookers,  many  of  whom  remem- 
bered poor  Bartlett.  It  was  unsafe  to  wrest  it  from  him  by  force  and  the  Red- 
Rockers  heaved  a  sigh  of  relief  when  he  started  to  climb  the  hill  leading  to 
Summit  City.  Scores  watched  him,  expecting  an  accident.  At  a  rough  spot 
Reed  stumbled  and  the  cans  fell  to  the  ground.  A  terrific  explosion  shook  the 
surrounding  country.  A  deep  hole,  ten  feet  in  diameter,  was  blown  in  the 
earth  and  houses  in  the  vicinity  were  badly  shaken.  The  explosion  occurred 
directly  under  a  tree.  When  an  attempt  was  made  to  gather  up  Reed's  re- 
mains the  greater  portion  of  the  body  was  in  the  tree,  scraps  of  flesh  of  various 
sizes  hanging  from  its  branches.  The  concussion  passed  above  Red  Rock, 
hence  the  damage  to  property  was  small.  Reed  was  dispersed  over  an  acre  of 
brush,  a  fearful  illustration  of  the  incompatibility  of  whisky  and  Nitro-Glycerine. 

W.  O.  Gotham,  John  Fowler  and  Harry  French  went  to  their  usual  work 
at  Gotham's  Nitro-Glycerine  factory,  near  Petrolia,  on  the  morning  of  October 
twenty-seventh,  1878.  An  explosion  during  the  forenoon  tore  Fowler  to  shreds, 
mutilated  French  shockingly  and  landed  Gotham's  dead  body  in  the  stream 
with  hardly  a  sign  of  injury.  Petrolia  never  witnessed  a  sadder  funeral-proces- 
sion than  the  long  one  that  followed  the  unfortunate  three  to  the  tomb.  Gotham 
had  a  family  and  was  widely  known  ;  the  others  were  strangers,  far  from  home 
and  loved  ones. 

On  February  twentieth,  1880,  James  Feeney  and  Leonard  Tackett  started 
in  a  sleigh  with  six  cans  under  the  seat  to  torpedo  a  well  at  Tram  Hollow, 
eight  miles  east  by  north  of  Bradford.  The  sleigh  slipped  into  a  rut  on  a  rough 
side-hill  and  capsized.  The  glycerine  exploded,  throwing  Tackett  high  in  the 
air  and  mangling  him  considerably.  Feeney  lay  flat  in  the  rut,  the  violence  of 
the  shock  passing  over  him  and  covering  him  with  snow  and  fence-rails.  His 
face  was  scorched  and  his  hearing  destroyed,  but  he  managed  to  crawl  out,  the 
first  man  who  ever  emerged  alive  from  the  jaws  of  a  Nitro-Glycerine  eruption. 
He  is  still  a  resident  of  Bradford.  A  dwelling  close  to  the  scene  was  wrecked, 
the  falling  timbers  seriously  injuring  two  of  the  inmates. 

At  two  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  December  twenty-third,  1880,  a  powerful 
concussion  startled  the  people  of  Bradford  from  their  slumbers,  caused  by  a 
glycerine-explosion  just  below  the  city-limits.  Alvin  Magee  was  standing  over 
the  deadly  compound,  which  had  been  put  in  a  tub  of  hot  water  to  thaw.  Usu- 
ally the  subtle  stuff  is  stored  in  a  cold  place,  to  congeal  or  freeze  until  needed. 
Magee  and  the  derrick  were  blown  into  space,  only  a  few  bits  of  flesh  and  bone 
and  splintered  wood  remaining.  His  two  companions  were  in  the  engine- 
house  and  got  off  with  severe  bruises  and  permanent  deafness.  Two  men 
named  Gushing  and  Leasure  were  killed  the  same  way  in  January,  at  a  well 
near  Limestone.  Gushing  came  to  see  the  torpedo  put  into  the  well  and  was 
standing  near  the  engine-house,  into  which  Leasure  had  just  gone,  when  the 
accident  occurred.  The  glycerine  was  in  hot  water  to  thaw  and  a  jet  of  steam 
turned  on,  with  the  effect  of  sending  it  off  prematurely.  Cushing's  body  did 


NHRO-GL  YCERINE  IN  THIS. 


347 


not  show  a  mark,  his  death  probably  resulting  from  concussion,  while  Leasure 
was  torn  to  fragments. 

E.  M.  Pearsall,  of  Oil  City,  died  on  July  fourteenth,  1880,  from  the  effect  of 
burns  a  few  hours  before.  In  company  with  two  other  men  he  went  to  torpedo 
one  of  his  wells  on  the  Clapp  farm.  The  tubing  had  been  drawn  out  and  a 
large  amount  of  benzine  poured  into  the  hole.  The  torpedo  was  exploded, 
when  the  gas  and  benzine  took  fire  and  enveloped  the  men  and  rig  in  flames. 
The  clothes  of  Pearsall,  who  was  nearest  to  the  derrick,  caught  fire  and  burned 
from  his  body.  His  limbs,  face  and  breast  were  a  fearful  sight.  His  intense 
suffering  he  bore  like  a  hero,  made  a  will  and  calmly  awaited  death,  which 
came  to  his  relief  at  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening.  Pearsall  was  dark-haired, 
dark-eyed,  slender,  wiry  and  fearless. 

J.  Plumer  Mitchell— we  called  him  "  Plum  "—worked  for  me  on  the  Inde- 
pendent Press  at  Franklin  in  1879-80.  Everybody  liked  the  bright,  genial, 
capable  young  man  who  set  type,  read  proof,  wrote  locals,  solicited  advertise- 
ments and  won  golden  opinions.  He  married  and  was  the  proud  father  of  two 

winsome  children.     Meeting   me    on    the     

street  one  day  shortly  after  quitting  the 
Press,  we  chatted  briefly. 

"I  am  through  with  sticking  type," 
he  said. 

' '  What  are  you  driving  at  now  ?" 

"Torpedoing  wells.  I  started  on  Mon- 
day." 

"Well,  be  sure  you  get  good  pay,  for 
it's  risky  business,  and  don't  furnish  a  thrill- 
ing paragraph  for  the  obituary-column." 

"I  shall  do  my  best  to  steer  clear  ot 
that.  Good-bye." 

That  was  our  last  meeting.  He  met 
the  fate  that  overtook  West,  Taylor  and 
Harper,  shooting  a  well  at  Galloway.  The 
shattered  frame  rests  in  the  cemetery  and 
the  widow  and  fatherless  daughters  of  the  lamented  dead  reside  at  Franklin. 
Poor  "Plum  !" 

T.  A.  McClain,  an  employe  of  the  Roberts  Company,  was  hauling  two- 
hundred  quarts  of  glycerine  in  a  sleigh  from  Davis  Switch  to  Kinzua  Junction, 
on  February  fourteenth,  1881.  The  horses  frightened  and  ran  off.  The  sleigh 
is  supposed  to  have  struck  a  stump  and  the  cargo  exploded.  Hardly  a  trace  of 
McClain  could  be  found  and  a  bit  of  the  steel-shoeing  was  the  only  part  of  the 
sleigh  recovered.  Obliteration  more  complete  it  would  be  difficult  to  imagine. 

The  most  destructive  sacrifice  of  life  followed  on  September  seventh. 
Charles  Rust,  a  Bradford  shooter,  drove  to  Sawyer  City  to  torpedo  a  well  on 
the  Jane  Schoonover  farm.  It  is  alleged  that  Rust  had  domestic  trouble, 
wearied  of  life  and  told  his  wife  when  leaving  that  morning  he  would  never 
return.  A  small  crowd  assembled  to  witness  the  operation.  William  Bunton, 
owner  of  several  adjacent  wells,  Charles  Crouse,  known  as  "Big  Charlie  the 
Moonlighter,"  James  Thrasher,  tool-dresser,  and  Rust  were  on  the  derrick-floor. 
Rust  filled  the  first  shell,  fixed  the  firing-head  and  struck  the  cap  two  sharp 
blows  with  his  left  hand.  There  was  a  blinding  flash,  then  a  deafening  report. 
Dust,  smoke  and  missiles  filled  the  air.  The  derrick  was  demolished  and  pieces 


LUMER   MITCHELL. 


348  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE   OIL 

of  board  flew  hundreds  of  yards  with  the  force  of  cannon-balls.  One  hit  Grouse 
in  the  center  of  the  forehead  and  passed  through  the  skull.  His  face  was  terribly 
lacerated  and  the  clothing  stripped  off  his  body.  Bunton  and  Thrasher  were  not 
mangled  beyond  recognition,  while  Rust  was  thrown  a  hundred  yards.  His 
legs  were  missing,  the  face  was  battered  out  of  the  semblance  of  humanity  and 
not  a  vestige  of  clothing  was  left  on  the  mutilated  trunk.  Frederick  Slatterly, 
a  lad  on  his  way  to  school,  was  hit  by  a  piece  of  the  derrick,  which  ripped  his 
abdomen  and  caused  death  in  three  hours.  Three  boys  walking  behind  young 
Slatterly  were  thrown  down  and  hurt  slightly.  Mr.  Bunton  gasped  when  picked 
up  and  lived  five  minutes.  He  was  an  estimable  citizen,  an  elder  in  the  Presby- 
terian church,  intelligent  and  broad-minded.  Thrasher  and  Grouse  were  indus- 
trious workmen.  Edward  Wilson,  a  gauger,  standing  ten  rods  away,  was  per- 
forated by  slivers  and  pieces  of  tin,  his  injuries  confining  him  to  bed  several 
months.  Thomas  Buton  and  John  Sisley  were  at  the  side  of  the  derrick,  within 
six  feet  of  Rust,  yet  escaped  with  trifling  injuries.  The  tragedy  produced  a  sen- 
sation, all  the  more  fearful  from  the  belief  of  some  who  witnessed  it  that  Rust 
intended  to  commit  suicide  and  in  compassing  his  own  death  killed  four  inno- 
cent victims. 

The  Roberts  magazine  on  the  Hatfield  farm,  two  miles  south  of  Bradford, 
blew  up  on  the  night  of  October  thirteenth,  1881.  Nobody  doubted  it  was  the 
work  of  "moonlighters"  attempting  to  steal  the  glycerine.  Traces  of  blood 
and  minute  portions  of  flesh  on  the  stones  'and  ties  indicated  that  two  persons 
at  least  were  engaged  in  the  job.  Who  they  were  none  ever  learned. 

John  McCleary,  a  Roberts  shooter,  had  a  remarkable  escape  on  December 
twenty-seventh,  1881.  While  filling  the  shell  at  a  well  near  Haymaker,  in  the 
lower  oil-field,  the  well  flowed  and  McCleary  left  the  derrick.  The  column  of 
oil  threw  down  the  shell  and  the  glycerine  exploded  promptly,  wrecking  the 
derrick  and  tossing  the  fleeing  man  violently  to  the  ground.  He  rose  to  his  feet 
as  four  cans  on  the  derrick-floor  cut  loose.  McCleary  was  borne  fifty  feet 
through  the  air,  jagged  splinters  of  tin  and  wood  pierced  his  back  and  sides  and 
he  fell  stunned  and  bleeding.  He' was  not  injured  fatally.  Like  Feeney,  Buton 
and  Sisley,  he  survives  to  tell  of  his  close  call.  Less  fortunate  was  Henry  W. 
McHenry,  who  had  torpedoed  hundreds  of  wells  and  was  blown  to  atoms  near 
Simpson  Station,  in  the  southern  end  of  the  Bradford  region,  on  February  fifth, 
1883.  His  fate  resembled  West's,  Taylor's,  Harper's  and  Mitchell's. 

In  the  summer  of  1884  Lark  Easton  went  to  torpedo  a  well  at  Coleville, 
seven  miles  southeast  of  Bradford.  He  tied  his  team  in  the  woods,  carried 
some  cans  of  glycerine  to  the  well  and  left  four  in  the  wagon.  A  storm  blew 
down  a  tree,  which  fell  on  the  wagon  and  exploded  the  glycerine,  demolishing 
the  vehicle  and  killing  one  horse.  It  was  a  lucky  escape,  if  not  much  of  a  lark, 
for  Easton. 

A  peculiar  case  was  that  of  "  Doc  "  Haggerty,  a  teamster  employed  to  haul 
Nitro-Glycerine  to  the  magazine  near  Pleasantville.  In  December  of  1888  he 
took  fourteen-hundred  pounds  on  his  wagon  and  was  seen  at  the  magazine 
twenty  minutes  before  a  furious  explosion  occurred.  Pieces  of  the  horses  and 
wagon  were  found,  but  not  an  atom  of  Haggerty.  He  had  disappeared  as  com- 
pletely as  Elijah  in  the  chariot  of  fire.  An  insurance-company,  in  which  he 
held  a  five-thousand-dollar  policy,  resisted  payment  on  the  ground  that,  as  no 
remains  of  the  alleged  dead  man  could  be  produced,  he  might  be  alive ! 
Some  pretexts  for  declining  to  pay  a  policy  are  pretty  mean,  but  this  certainly 
capped  the  climax.  Experts  believed  the  heat  generated  by  the  explosion  was 


NITRO-GLYCERINE  IN   THIS.  349 

sufficient  to  cremate  the  body  instantaneously,  bones,  clothes,  boots  and  all. 

James  Woods  and  William  Medeller,  two  experienced  shooters,  were  ush- 
ered into  eternity  on  December  tenth,  1889,  by  the  explosion  of  the  Humes 
Torpedo-Company's  magazine  at  Bean  Hollow,  two  miles  south  of  Butler. 
They  had  gone  for  glycerine  and  that  was  the  end  of  their  mortal  pilgrimage. 
Six  years  later,  on  December  fourth,  1895,  at  the  same  place  and  in  the  same 
way,  George  Bester  and  Lewis  Black  lost  their  lives.  Bester  was  blown  to 
atoms  and  only  a  few  threads  of  his  clothing  could  be  picked  up.  The  lower 
part  of  Black's  face,  the  trunk  and  right  arm  remained  together,  while  other 
portions  of  the  body  were  strewn  around.  The  left  arm  was  in  a  tree  three- 
hundred  yards  distant.  Huge  holes  marked  the  site  of  the  two  Humes  mag- 
azines, a  hundred  feet  apart.  The  mangled  horse  lay  between  them,  every 
bone  in  his  carcass  broken  and  the  harness  cut  off  clean.  The  buggy  was  in 
fragments,  with  one  tire  wrapped  five  times  about  a  small  tree.  Not  a  board 
stayed  on  the  boiler-house  and  the  boiler  was  moved  twenty  feet  and  disman- 
tled. The  factory,  two-hundred  feet  from  the  magazines,  was  utterly  wrecked. 
The  young  men  left  Butler  early  in  the  morning,  Black  going  for  company. 
The  supposition  is  that  Bester  was  removing  some  of  the  cans  from  the  shelf, 
intending  to  take  them  out,  and  that  he  dropped  one  of  them.  About  seven- 
hundred  pounds  of  glycerine  were  stored  in  one  of  the  magazines  and  a  less 
amount  in  the  other.  George  Bester  was  twenty-eight  and  had  a  wife  and  two 
small  children.  He  was  industrious,  steady  and  one  of  the  best  shooters  in 
the  business.  Black  was  twenty  and  lived  with  his  parents.  The  concussion 
jarred  every  house  in  Butler,  broke  windows  and  loosened  plaster  in  the  Mc- 
Kean  school-building,  causing  a  panic  among  the  children. 

W.  N.  Downing's  death,  on  January  second,  1891,  at  the  Victor  Oil-Com- 
pany's well,  in  the  Archer's  Forks  oil-field,  near  Wheeling,  West  Virginia,  was 
very  singular.  The  glycerine  used  to  torpedo  the  well  the  previous  day  had 
been  thawed  in  a  barrel  of  warm  water.  Next  day  two  of  the  owners  drove 
out  to  see  the  well  and  talk  with  Downing,  who  was  foreman  of  the  company. 
On  their  way  back  to  Wheeling  they  heard  an  explosion,  conjectured  the  boiler 
had  burst  and  returned  to  the  lease.  Mr.  Downing's  body  lay  near  where  the 
barrel  of  water  had  stood.  The  barrel  had  vanished  and  a  large  hole  occupied 
its  place.  The  victim's  head  was  cut  off  on  a  line  with  the  eyes.  The  only 
explanation  of  the  accident  was  that  the  glycerine  had  leaked  into  the  barrel 
and  a  sudden  jar  had  caused  the  stuff  to  explode.  Beside  the  well,  in  the 
fence-corner,  were  twelve  cans  of  glycerine  not  exploded.  Downing  lived  at 
Siverlyville,  above  Oil  City,  whither  his  remains  were  brought  for  interment. 

Letting  a  torpedo  down  a  well  at  Bradford  in  September  of  1877,  a  flow  of 
oil  jerked  it  out,  hurled  the  shell  against  the  tools,  which  were  hanging  in  the 
derrick,  and  set  off  the  nitro  on  the  double  quick.  The  shooter  jumped  and  ran 
at  the  first  symptoms  of  trouble,  the  derrick  was  sliced  in  the  middle  and  set  on 
fire.  The  rig  burned  and  strenuous  exertions  alone  saved  neighboring  wells. 
The  fire  was  a  novelty  in  the  career  of  the  explosive. 

Occasionally  Nitro-Glycerine  goes  off  by  spontaneous  combustion  without 
apparent  provocation.  On  December  fifth,  1881,  two  of  the  employes  noticed  a 
thin  smoke  rising  from  the  top  row  of  cans  in  the  Roberts  magazine  at  Kinzua 
Junction.  They  retreated,  came  back  and  removed  eighty  cans,  observed  the 
smoke  increasing  in  density  and  volume  and  decided  to  watch  further  proceed- 
ings from  a  safe  distance.  Twelve-hundred  quarts  exploded  with  such  vigor 
that  the  earth  jarred  for  miles  and  a  big  hole  was  ploughed  in  the  rock.  In  No- 


350  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

vember  of  1885  the  Rock  Glycerine-Company's  factory  on  Minard  Run,  four 
miles  south  of  Bradford,  was  wrecked  for  the  fourth  time.  O.  Wood  and  A. 
Brown  were  running  the  mixture  into  "the  drowning  tank,"  to  divest  it  of  the 
acid.  The  process  generates  much  heat  and  acid  escaping  from  a  leak  in  the 
tank  fired  the  wood-work.  Wood  and  Brown  and  a  carpenter  in  the  building, 
knowing  their  deliverance  depended  upon  their  speed,  took  French  leave. 
Samuel  Barber,  a  teamster,  was  unloading  a  drum  of  acid  in  front  of  the  build- 
ing and  joined  the  fugitives  in  their  flight.  The  glycerine  obligingly  waited 
until  the  four  men  reached  a  safe  spot  and  then  reduced  the  factory  to  kindling- 
wood.  Barber's  horses  and  wagon  were  not  hurt  mortally,  the  animals  bleed- 
ing a  little  from  the  nose.  Next  evening  Tucker's  factory  at  Corwin  Centre,  six 
miles  north-east  of  Bradford,  followed  suit.  Griffin  Rathburn,  who  was  making 
a  run  of  the  fluids,  fled  for  his  life  as  the  mass  emitted  a  flame.  He  saved  him- 
self, but  the  factory  and  a  thousand  pounds  of  the  explosive  went  on  an  aerial 
excursion. 

Men  in  Ohio,  West  Virginia  and  Indiana  have  added  to  the  dismal  roll  of 
those  who,  leaving  home  happy  and  buoyant  in  the  morning,  ere  the  sun  set 
were  dispersed  over  acres  of  territory.  Yet  all  experiences  with  the  dread 
compound  have  not  been  serious,  for  at  intervals  a  comic  incident  brightens  the 
page.  Robert  L.  Wilson,  a  blacksmith  on  Cherry  Run  in  1869-70,  was  a  first- 
class  tool-manufacturer.  Joining  the  Butler  tide,  he  opened  a  shop  at  Modoc. 
A  fellow  of  giant-build  entered  one  day,  bragged  of  his  muscle  as  well  as  his 
stuttering  tongue  would  permit  and  wanted  work.  Something  about  the  fel- 
low displeased  Wilson,  who  was  of  medium  size  and  thin  as  Job's  turkey,  and 
he  decided  to  have  a  little  fun  at  the  stranger's  expense.  He  asked  the  burly 
visitor  whether  he  could  strike  the  anvil  a  heavier  blow  than  any  other  man  in 
the  shop.  The  chap  responded  yes  and  Wilson  agreed  to  hire  him  if  he  proved 
his  claim  good.  Wilson  poured  two  or  three  drops  of  what  looked  like  lard- 
oil  on  the  anvil  and  the  big  'un  braced  himself  to  bring  down  the  sledge-ham- 
mer with  the  force  of  a  pile-driver.  He  struck  the  exact  spot.  The  sledge 
soared  through  the  roof  and  the  giant  was  pitched  against  the  side  of  the  build- 
ing hard  enough  to  knock  off  a  half-dozen  boards.  When  he  extracted  himself 
from  the  mess  and  regained  breath  he  blurted  out :  "I  t-t-told  you  I  co  cou- 
could  hi-hi-hit  a  he-he-hell  of  a  b-bl-blow  !"  "Right,"  said  Wilson,  "you  can 
beat  any  of  us  ;  be  on  hand  to-morrow  morning  to  begin  work."  The  man 
worked  faithfully  and  did  not  discover  for  months  that  the  stuff  on  the  anvil 
was  Nitro-Glycerine. 

The  farm-house  of  Albert  Jones,  three  miles  from  Auburn,  Illinois,  was 
demolished  on  a  Sunday  afternoon  in  November  of  1885.  Jones  had  procured 
some  Nitro-Glycerine  to  remove  stumps  and  set  the  can  on  the  floor  of  the  din- 
ing-room. After  dinner  the  family  visited  a  neighbor,  locking  up  the  house. 
About  three  o'clock  a  thundering  detonation  alarmed  the  Auburnites,  who 
couldn't  understand  the  cause  of  the  rumpus.  A  messenger  from  the  country 
enlightened  them.  The  Jones  domicile  had  been  wrecked  mysteriously  and 
the  family  must  have  perished.  Excited  people  soon  arrived  and  the  Joneses 
put  in  an  appearance.  The  house  and  furniture  were  scattered  in  tiny  tidbits 
over  an  area  of  five-hundred  yards.  Half  the  original  height  of  the  four  walls 
was  standing,  with  a  saw-tooth  and  splintered  fringe  all  around  the  irregular  top 
of  the  oblong.  Two  beds  were  found  several  hundred  yards  apart,  in  the  road 
in  front  of  the  house.  A  sewing-machine  was  buried  head-first  in  the  flower- 
garden.  Wearing-apparel  and  household-articles  were  strewn  about  the  place. 


NITROGLYCERINE  IN  THIS  351 

While  Mr.  Jones  and  a  circle  of  friends  were  viewing  the  wreck  and  wondering 
how  the  Nitro-Glycerine  exploded  a  faint  cry  was  heard.  A  search  resulted  in 
finding  the  family-cat  in  the  branches  of  a  tree  fifty  feet  from  the  dwelling.  It 
was  surmised  the  cat  caused  the  disaster  by  pushing  from  the  table  some  article 
sufficiently  heavy  to  explode  the  glycerine  on  the  floor.  The  New  York  Sun's 
famous  grimalkin  should  have  retired  to  a  back-fence  and  begun  his  final  cat- 
erwauling over  the  superior  performance  of  the  Illinois  feline.  Jones  and  his 
friends  unanimously  endorsed  the  verdict  :  "It  was  the  cat." 

The  first  statement  coupling  a  hog  and  Nitro-Glycerine  in  one  package  was 
written  by  me  in  December  of  1869,  at  Rouseville,  and  printed  in  the  Oil-City 
Times.  The  item  went  the  rounds  of  the  press  in  America  and  Europe,  many 
papers  giving  due  credit  and  many  localizing  the  narrative  to  palm  it  off  as 
original.  One  of  the  latter  was  "Brick"  Pomeroy's  La  Crosse  Democrat, 
which  laid  the  scene  in  that  neck  of  woods.  The  tale  has  often  been  resur- 
rected and  it  was  reported  in  a  New-Orleans  paper  last  month.  The  original 
version  of  "The  Loaded  Porker  "  read  thus  : 

"  Rouseville  furnishes  the  latest  unpatented  novelty  in  connection  with  Nitro-Glycerine.  A 
torpedo-man  had  taken  a  small  parcel  of  the  dangerous  compound  from  the  magazine  and  on  his 
return  dropped  into  an  engine-house  a  few  minutes,  leaving  the  vessel  beside  the  door.  A  ram- 
pant hog,  in  search  of  a  rare  Christmas  dinner,  discovered  the  tempting  package  and  unceremo- 
niously devoured  the  entire  contents,  just  finishing  the  last  atom  as  the  torpedoist  emerged  from 
the  building!  Now  everybody  gives  the  greedy  animal  the  widest  latitude.  It  has  full  posses- 
sion of  the  whole  sidewalk  whenever  disposed  to  promenade.  All  the  dogs  in  town  have  been 
placed  in  solitary  confinement,  for  fear  they  might  chase  the  loaded  porker  against  a  post.  No 
one  is  sufficiently  reckless  to  kick  the  critter,  lest  it  should  unexpectedly  explode  and  send  the 
town  and  its  total  belongings  to  everlasting  smash  !  The  matter  is  really  becoming  serious  and 
how  to  dispose  safely  of  a  gormandizing  swine  that  has  imbibed  two  quarts  of  infernal  glycerine 
is  the  grand  conundrum  of  the  hour.  When  he  is  killed  and  ground  up  into  sausage  and  head- 
cheese a  new  terror  will  be  added  to  the  long  list  that  boarding-houses  possess  already." 

Charles  Foster,  of  the  High-Explosive  Company,  had  an  adventure  in 
March  of  1896  that  he  would  not  repeat  for  a  hatful  of  diamonds.  He  loaded 
five-hundred  quarts  of  glycerine  at  the  magazine  near  Kane  City.  On  Rynd 
Hill  the  horses  slipped  and  one  fell.  The  driver  jumped  from  his  seat  to  hold 
the  animal's  head  that  it  might  not  struggle.  He  cut  the  other  horse  free  from 
the  harness,  as  the  road  skirted  a  precipice  and  the  frightened  beast's  rearing 
and  plunging  would  almost  certainly  dump  the  wagon  and  outfit  over  the  steep 
bank.  Nobody  was  in  sight,  the  driver  had  no  chance  to  block  the  wheels  and 
the  wagon  started  down  the  hill  backward.  The  vehicle,  with  its  load  of  con- 
densed destruction,  kept  the  road  a  few  yards  and  pitched  over  the  hill,  turn- 
ing somersaults  in  its  descent.  It  brought  up  standing  on  the  tongue  in  a  heap 
of  stones.  The  covers  were  torn  off  the  wagon  and  the  cans  of  the  explosive 
were  widely  scattered.  Seven  in  one  bunch  were  picked  up  ten  yards  below 
the  road.  A  three-cornered  hole  had  been  jammed  in  the  bottom  of  one  of 
the  eight-quart  cans  and  the  contents  were  escaping.  Darkness  came  on  be- 
fore the  glycerine  could  be  removed  to  a  place  of  safety.  Foster  secured  a 
rig  and  drove  home,  after  arranging  to  have  the  stuff  taken  to  the  factory  next 
morning.  How  the  explosive,  although  congealed,  stood  the  shock  of  going 
over  the  hill  and  scattering  about  without  soaring  skyward  is  one  of  the  unfath- 
omed  mysteries  of  the  Nitro-Glycerine  business. 

A  Polish  resident  of  South  Oil  City  carried  home  what  he  took  to  be  an 
empty  tomato-can.  His  wife  chanced  to  upset  it  from  a  shelf  in  the  kitchen. 
A  few  drops  of  glycerine  must  have  adhered  to  the  tin.  The  can  burst  with 
fearful  violence,  blowing  out  one  side  of  the  kitchen,  destroying  the  woman's 


352  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

eyes  and  nearly  blinding  her  little  daughter.  A  woman  at  Rouseville  poured 
glycerine,  mistaking  it  for  lard-oil,  into  a  frying-pan  on  the  stove,  just  as  her 
husband  came  into  the  kitchen.  He  snatched  up  the  pan  and  landed  it  in  a 
snow-bank  so  quickly  the  stuff  didn't  burst  the  combination.  The  wife  started 
to  scold  him,  but  fainted  when  he  explained  the  situation. 

The  wonderful  explosion  at  Hell-Gate  in  1876,  when  General  Newton  fired 
two-hundred  tons  of  dynamite  and  cleared  a  channel  into  New-York  harbor 
for  the  largest  steamships,  brought  to  the  front  the  men  who  always  tell  of 
something  that  beats  the  record.  A  group  sat  discussing  Newton's  achieve- 
ment at  the  Collins  House,  Oil  City,  as  a  Southerner  with  a  military  title  en- 
tered. Catching  the  drift  of  the  argument  he  said  : 

"Talk  about  sending  rocks  and  water  up  in  the  air  !  I  knew  a  case  that 
knocked  the  socks  clear  off  this  little  ripple  at  New  York  !" 

"Tell  us  all  about  it,  Colonel,"  the  party  chorused. 

"You  see  I  used  to  live  down  in  Tennessee.  One  day  I  met  a  farmer 
driving  a  mule  that  looked  as  innocent  as  a  cherub.  The  farmer  had  a  whip 
with  a  brad  in  the  end  of  it.  Just  as  I  came  up  he  gave  the  mule  a  prod. 
Next  moment  he  was  gone.  It  almost  took  my  breath  away  to  see  a  chap 
snuffed  out  so  quick.  The  mule  merely  ducked  his  head  and  struck  out  be- 
hind. A  crash,  a  cloud  of  splinters  and  the  mule  and  I  were  alone,  with  not 
a  trace  of  farmer  or  wagon  in  sight.  Next  day  the  papers  had  accounts  ol 
a  shower  of  flesh  over  in  Kentucky  and  I  was  the  only  person  who  could  ex- 
plain the  phenomenon.  No,  gentlemen,  the  dynamite  and  Nitro-Glycerine  at 
Hell-Gate  couldn't  hold  a  candle  to  that  Tennessee  mule  !" 

The  silence  that  followed  this  tale  was  as  dense  as  a  London  fog  and  might 
have  been  cut  with  a  cheese-knife.  It  was  finally  broken  by  a  Derrick  writer, 
who  was  a  newspaper  man  and  not  easily  taken  down,  extending  an  invitation 
to  the  crowd  to  drink  to  the  health  of  Eli  Perkins's  and  Joe  Mulhatten's 
greatest  rival. 

William  A.  Meyers,  whom  every  man  and  woman  at  Bradford  knew  and 
admired,  handled  tons  of  explosives  and  shot  hundreds  of  wells.  He  had  es- 
capes that  would  stand  a  porcupine's  quills  on  end.  To  head  off  a  lot  of  fellows 
who  asked  him  for  the  thousandth  time  concerning  one  notable  adventure,  he 
concocted  a  new  version  of  the  affair.  "  It  was  a  close  call,"  he  said,  "and  no 
mistake.  In  the  magazine  I  got  some  glycerine  on  my  boots.  Soon  after  com- 
ing out  I  stamped  my  heel  on  a  stone  and  the  first  thing  I  knew  I  was  sailing 
heavenward.  When  I  alighted  I  struck  squarely  on  my  other  heel  and  began 
a  second  ascension.  Somehow  I  came  down  without  much  injury,  except  a 
bruised  feeling  that  wore  off  in  a  week  or  two.  You  see  the  glycerine  stuck 
to  my  boot-heels  and  when  it  hit  a  hard  substance  it  went  off  quicker  than  Old 
Nick  could  singe  a  kiln-dried  sinner.  What'll  you  take,  boys?" 

So  the  darkest  chapter  in  petroleum  history,  a  flood  of  litigation,  a  mass 
of  deception,  a  black  wave  of  treachery  and  a  red  streak  of  human  blood,  must 
be  charged  to  the  account  of  Nitro-Glycerine. 


HITS  AND  MISSES. 

A  Bradford  minister,  when  the  Academy  of  Music  burned  down,  shot  wide 
of  the  mark  in  attributing  the  fire  to  "the  act  of  God."  Sensible  Christians 
resented  the  imputation  that  God  would  destroy  a  dozen  houses  and  stores  to 
wipe  out  a  variety-theater,  or  that  He  had  anything  to  do  with  building  up  a 
trade  in  arson  and  figuring  as  an  incendiary. 

He  struck  a  match  and  the  gas  exploded  ; 
An  angel  now,  he  knows  it  was  loaded. 

"  Mariar,  what  book  was  you  readin'  so  late  last  night?"  asked  a  stiff  Pres- 
byterian father  at  Franklin.  "It  was  a  novel  by  Dumas  the  elder."  "  'Elder !' 
I  don't  believe  it.  What  church  was  he  elder  on,  Ish'd  like  to  know,  and  writ 
novels?  Go  and  read  Dr.  Eaton's  Presbytery  uv  Erie." 

Said  a  Warren  young  maiden  :  "Alas,  Will, 

You  come  every  night, 

And  talk  such  a  sight, 

And  burn  so  much  light, 
My  papa  declares  you're  a  Gas  Bill !" 

Hymn-singing  is  not  always  appropriate,  or  a  St.  Petersburg  leader  would 
not  have  started  "When  I  Can  Read  My  Title  Clear"  to  the  minstrel  melody 
of  "  Wait  for  the  Wagon  and  We'll  All  Take  a  Ride  !"  At  an  immersion  in  the 
river  below  Tidioute,  as  each  convert,  male  or  female,  emerged  dripping  from 
the  water,  the  people  interjected  the  revivalist  chorus: 

"  They  look  like  men  in  uniform, 
They  look  like  men  of  war  !" 

Mr.  Gray,  of  Boston,  once  discovered  a  ' '  non-explosive  illuminating  gaso- 
line." To  show  how  safe  the  new  compound  was,  he  invited  a  number  of 
friends  to  his  rooms,  whither  he  had  taken  a  barrel  of  the  fluid,  which  he  pro- 
ceeded to  stir  with  a  red-hot  poker.  As  they  all  went  through  the  roof  he 
endeavored  to  explain  to  his  nearest  companion  that  the  particular  fluid  in  the 
barrel  had  too  much  benzine  in  it,  but  the  gentleman  said  he  had  engagements 
higher  up  and  could  not  wait  for  the  explanation.  Mr.  Gray  continued  his 
ascent  until  he  met  Mr.  Jones,  who  informed  him  that  there  was  no  necessity  to 
go  higher,  as  everybody  was  coming  down ;  so  Mr.  Gray  started  back  to  be 
with  the  party.  Mr.  Gray's  widow  offered  the  secret  for  the  manufacture  of  the 
non-explosive  fluid  at  a  reduced  rate,  to  raise  money  to  buy  a  silver-handled 
coffin  with  a  gilt  plate  for  her  departed  husband. 

The  speech  of  a  youth  who  goes  courting  a  lass, 
Unless  he's  a  dunce  at  the  fool  of  the  class, 
Is  sure  to  he  se  ison'd  withnatutal  gas. 

Grant  Thomas,  train-dispatcher  at  Oil  City  of  the  Allegheny  Valley  Rail- 
road, is  one  of  the  jolliest  jokers  alive.  When  a  conductor  years  ago  a  young 
lady  of  his  acquaintance  said  to  him  :  "I  think  that  Smith  girl  is  just  too  hate- 
ful;  she's  called  her  nasty  pug  after  me!"  "Oh,"  replied  the  genial  ticket- 
puncher,  in  a  tone  meant  to  pour  oil  on  the  troubled  waters,  "that's  nothing; 
half  the  cats  in  Oil  City  are  called  after  me  !"  The  girl  saw  the  point,  laughed 
heartily  and  the  angel  of  peace  hovered  over  the  scene. 

"  What's  in  a  name?"  so  Shakespeare  wrote. 
Well,  a  good  deal  when  fellows  vote, 
Want  a  cneck  cashed,  or  sign  a  note; 
And  when  an  oilman  sinks  a  well, 
Drv  as  the  jokes  of  Digby  Bell, 
Dennis  or  Mud  fits  like  a  shell. 


STANDARD  BUILDING,  26  BROADWAY.  NEW  YORK. 


XIV. 


THE  STANDARD  OIL-COMPANY. 

GROWTH  OF  A  GREAT  CORPORATION — MISUNDERSTOOD  AND  MISREPRESENTED— IM- 
PROVEMENTS IN  TREATING  AND  TRANSPORTING  PETROLEUM — WHY  MANY  RE- 
FINERIES COLLAPSED — REAL  MEANING  OF  THE  TRUST — WHAT  A  COMBINATION 
OF  BRAINS  AND  CAPITAL  HAS  ACCOMPLISHED— MEN  WHO  BUILT  UP  A  VAST 
ENTERPRISE  THAT  HAS  NO  EQUAL  IN  THE  WORLD. 


"  Genius  is  the  faculty  of  growth."— Coleridge. 
"  In  union  there  is  strength. "—Popular  Adage. 

"  Success  affords  the  means  of  securing  additional  success."— Stanislaus. 
"  We  must  not  hope  to  be  mowers 

Until  we  have  first  been  sowers." — Alice  Cary 

"  Fortune,  success,  position,  are  never  gained  but  by  determinedly,  bravely  striking,  grow- 
ing, living  to  a  thing." — Townsend. 

"  The  goal  of  yesterday  will  be  the  starting-point  of  to-morrow." — Ibid. 
"  That  thou  art  blam'd  shall  not  be  thy  defect." — Shakespeare. 

"  Amongst  the  sons  of  men  how  tew  are  known 

Who  dare  be  just  to  merit  not  their  own." — Churchill. 
"  The  keen  spirit  seizes  the  prompt  occasion." — Hannah  More. 


c 


COMPARED  with  a  petroleum-sketch 
which  did  not  touch  upon  the  Stand- 
ard Oil-Company,  in  different  re- 
spects the  greatest  corporation  the 
world  has  ever  known,  Hamlet  with 
"the  melancholy  Dane  "  left  out  would  be 
a  masterpiece  of  completeness.  Perhaps 
no  business-organization  in  this  or  any 
other  country  has  been  more  misrepre- 
sented and  misunderstood.  To  many  well- 
meaning  persons,  who  would  not  willfully 
harbor  an  unjust  thought,  it  has  suggested 
all  that  is  vicious,  grasping  and  oppressive 
in  commercial  affairs.  They  picture  it  as 
a  cruel  monster,  wearing  horns  and  cloven- 
hoofs  and  a  forked-tail,  grown  rich  and  fat 
devouring  the  weak  and  the  innocent.  Its  motives  have  been  impugned,  its 
methods  condemned  and  its  actions  traduced.  If  a  man  in  Oildom  drilled  a 
dry-hole,  backed  the  wrong  horse,  lost  at  poker,  dropped  money  speculating, 
stubbed  his  toe,  ran  an  unprofitable  refinery,  missed  a  train  or  couldn't  main- 
tain champagne  style  on  a  lager-beer  income,  it  was  the  fashion  for  him  to 

(355) 


JOHN    D.    ROCKEFELLER. 


356  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

pose  as  the  victim  of  a  gang  of  conspirators  and  curse  the  Standard  vigor- 
ously and  vociferously  ! 

The  reasons  for  this  are  various.  The  Standard  was  made  the  scapegoat 
of  the  evil  deeds  alleged  to  have  been  contemplated  by  the  unsavory  South- 
Improvement  Company.  That  odious  combine,  which  included  a  number  of 
railroad-officials,  oil-operators  and  refiners,  disbanded  without  producing,  refin- 
ing, buying,  selling  or  transporting  a  gallon  of  petroleum.  "Politics  makes 
strange  bedfellows"  and  so  does  business.  Among  subscribers  for  South- 
Improvement  stock  were  certain  holders  of  Standard  stock  and  also  their  bit- 
terest opponents  ;  among  those  most  active  in  giving  the  job  its  death-blow 
were  prominent  members  of  the  Standard  Oil-Company.  The  projected  spolia- 
tion died  "unwept,  unhonored  and  unsung,"  but  it  was  not  a  Standard  scheme. 

Envy  is  frequently  the  penalty  of  success.  Whoever  fails  in  any  pursuit 
likes  to  blame  somebody  else  for  his  misfortune.  This  trick  is  as  old  as  the 
race.  Adam  started  it  in  Eden,  Eve  tried  to  ring  in  the  serpent  and  their  poster- 
ity take  good  care  not  to  let  the  game  get  rusty  from  disuse  !  Its  aggregation 
of  capital  renders  the  Standard,  in  the  opinion  of  those  who  have  "fallen  out- 
side the  breastworks,"  directly  responsible  for  their  inability  to  keep  up  with 
the  procession.  Sympathizers  with  them  deem  this  "  confirmation  strong  as 
proof  of  Holy  Writ"  that  the  Standard  is  an  unconscionable  monopoly,  fos- 
tered by  crushing  out  competition.  Such  reasoning  forgets  that  enterprise,  en- 
ergy, experience  and  capital  are  usually  trump-cards.  It  forgets  that  "  the  race 
is  to  the  swift,"  the  battle  is  to  the  mighty  and  that  "  Heaven  is  on  the  side  with 
the  heaviest  artillery."  Carried  to  its  logical  conclusion,  it  means  that  im- 
proved methods,  labor-saving  appliances  and  new  processes  count  for  nothing. 
It  means  that  the  snail  can  travel  with  the  antelope,  that  the  locomotive  must 
wait  for  the  stage-coach,  that  the  fittest  shall  not  survive.  In  short,  it  is  the 
double-distilled  essence  of  absurdity. 

Any  advance  in  methods  of  business  necessarily  injures  the  poorest  com- 
petitor. Is  this  a  reason  why  advances  should  be  held  back  ?  If  so,  the  public 
could  derive  no  benefit  from  competition.  The  fact  that  a  man  with  meagre 
resources  labors  under  a  serious  disadvantage  is  not  an  excuse  for  preventing 
stronger  parties  from  entering  the  field.  The  grand  mistake  is  in  confounding 
combination  with  monopoly.  By  combination  small  capital  can  compete  suc- 
cessfully with  large  capital.  Every  partnership  or  corporation  is  a  combination r 
without  which  undertakings  beyond  individual  reach  would  never  be  accom- 
plished. Trunk  railroads  would  not  be  built,  unity  of  action  would  be  de- 
stroyed, mankind  would  segregate  as  savages  and  the  trade  of  the  world  would 
stagnate.  Combinations  should  be  regulated,  not  abolished.  Rightful  compe- 
tition is  not  a  fierce  strife  between  persons  to  undersell  each  other,  that  the  one 
enduring  the  longest  may  afterwards  sell  higher,  but  that  which  furnishes  the 
public  with  the  best  products  at  the  least  cost.  This  is  not  done  by  selling 
below  cost,  but  by  diminishing  in  every  way  possible  the  cost  of  producing, 
manufacturing  and  transporting.  The  competition  which  does  this,  be  it  by  an 
individual,  a  firm,  a  corporation,  a  trust  or  a  combination,  is  a  public  benefac- 
tor. This  kind  of  competition  uses  the  best  tools,  discards  the  sickle  for  the 
cradle  and  the  cradle  for  the  reaper,  abandons  the  flail  for  the  threshing-ma- 
chine and  adopts  the  newest  ideas  wherever  and  whenever  expenses  can  be 
lessened.  To  this  end  unrestricted  combination  and  unrestricted  competition 
must  go  hand-in-hand.  A  small  profit  on  a  large  volume  of  business  is  better 
for  the  consumer  than  a  large  profit  on  a  small  business.  The  man  who  sells  a 


THE  STANDARD   OIL-COMPANY.  357 

million  dollars'  worth  of  goods  a  year'at  a  profit  of  five  per  cent.,  will  become 
rich,  while  he  who  sells  only  ten-thousand  dollars'  worth  can  get  a  bare  living. 
If  the  builder  of  a  business  of  one  hundred-thousand  dollars  deserve  praise, 
why  should  the  builder  of  a  business  of  millions  be  censured?  Business  that 
grows  greater  than  people's  limited  notions  should  not  for  that  cause  be  fet- 
tered or  suppressed.  When  business  ceases  to  be  local  and  has  the  world  for 
its  market,  capital  must  be  supplied  to  meet  the  increasing  demand  and  combi- 
nation is  as  essential  as  fresh  air.  Thus  large  establishments  take  the  place  of 
small  ones  and  men  acting  in  concert  achieve  what  they  would  never  attempt 
separately.  The  more  perfect  the  power  of  association  the  greater  the  power 
of  production  and  the  larger  the  proportion  of  the  product  which  falls  to  the 
laborer's  share.  The  magnitude  of  combinations  must  correspond  with  the 
magnitude  of  the  business  to  be  done,  in  order  to  secure  the  highest  skill,  to 
employ  the  latest  devices,  to  pay  the  best  wages,  to  invent  new  appliances,  to 
improve  facilities  and  to  give  the  public  a  cheaper  and  finer  product.  This  is 
as  natural  and  legitimate  as  for  water  to  run  down  hill  or  the  fleet  greyhound 
to  distance  the  slow  tortoise. 

How  has  the  Standard  affected  the  consumer  of  petroleum-products  ?  What 
has  it  done  for  the  people  who  use  illuminating  oils  ?  Has  it  advanced  the  price 
and  impaired  the  quality?  The  early  distillations  of  petroleum  were  unsatis- 
factory and  often  dangerous.  The  first  refineries  were  exceedingly  primitive  and 
their  processes  simple.  Much  of  the  crude  was  wasted  in  refining,  a  business 
not  financially  successful  as  a  rule  until  1872,  notwithstanding  the  high  prices 
obtained.  Methods  of  manufacture  and  transportation  were  expensive  and 
inadequate.  The  product  was  of  poor  quality,  emitting  smoke  and  unpleasant 
odor  and  liable  to  explode  on  the  slightest  provocation.  In  1870  a  few  persons, 
who  had  previously  been  partners  in  a  refinery  at  Cleveland,  organized  the 
Standard  Oil-Company  of  Ohio,  with  a  capital  of  one-million  dollars,  increased 
subsequently  to  three-and-a-half  millions.  For  years  the  history  of  refining  had 
been  mainly  one  of  disaster  and  bankruptcy.  A  Standard  Oil-Company  had 
been  organized  at  Pittsburg  by  other  persons  and  was  doing  a  large  trade. 
The  Cleveland  Standard  Refinery,  the  Pittsburg  Standard  Refinery,  the  Atlantic 
Refining  Company  of  Philadelphia  and  Charles  Pratt  &  Co.  of  New  York  were 
extensive  concerns.  Because  of  the  hazardous  nature  and  peculiar  conditions 
of  the  refining  industry,  the  need  of  improved  methods  and  the  manifold  advan- 
tages of  combination,  they  entered  into  an  alliance  for  their  mutual  benefit. 
Refineries  in  the  oil-regions  had  combined  before,  hence  the  association  of  these 
interests  was  not  a  novelty.  The  cost  of  transporation  and  packages  had  been 
important  factors  in  crippling  the  industry.  Crude  was  barreled  at  the  wells  and 
hauled  in  wagons  to  the  railroads  prior  to  the  system  of  transporting  it  by  pipes 
laid  under  ground.  Railroad-rates  were  excessive  and  irregular.  Refiners 
who  combined  and  could  throw  a  large  volume  of  business  to  any  particular 
road  secured  favorable  rates.  The  rebate-system  was  universal,  not  confined 
to  oil  alone,  and  possibly  this  fact  had  much  to  do  with  the  combination  of 
refiners  afterwards  known  as  the  Standard  Oil-Company. 

Very  naturally  the  Standard  endeavored  to  secure  the  lowest  transporta- 
tion-rates. Quite  as  naturally  railroad-managers,  in  their  eagerness  to  secure 
the  traffic,  vied  with  each  other  in  offering  inducements  to  large  shippers  of 
petroleum.  The  Standard  furnished,  loaded  and  unloaded  its  own  tank-cars, 
thereby  eliminating  barrels  and  materially  cheapening  the  freight-service.  This 
reduction  of  expense  reduced  the  price  of  refined  in  the  east  to  a  figure  which 


358  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

greatly  increased  the  demand  and  gave  oil-operations  a  healthy  stimulus.  Still 
more  important  was  the  introduction  of  improvements  in  refining,  which  yielded 
a  larger  percentage  of  illuminating-oil  and  converted  the  residue  into  merchant- 
able products.  Chemical  and  mechanical  experts,  employed  by  the  combined 
companies  to  conduct  experiments  in  this  direction,  aided  in  devising  processes 
which  revolutionized  refining.  The  highest  quality  of  burning-oil  was  obtained 
and  nearly  every  particle  of  crude  was  utilized.  Substances  of  commercial 
value  took  the  place  of  the  waste  that  formerly  emptied  into  the  streams,  pol- 
luting the  waters  and  the  atmosphere.  In  this  way  the  cost  was  so  lessened 
that  kerosene  became  the  light  of  the  nations.  Consumers,  whose  dime  now 
will  buy  as  much  as  a  dollar  would  before  the  "octopus"  was  heard  of,  are 
correspondingly  happy. 

Since  consumers  have  fared  so  well,  how  about  refiners  outside  the  Stan- 
dard ?  That  smaller  concerns  were  unable  to  compete  with  the  Standard  under 
such  circumstances  was  no  reason  why  the  public  should  be  deprived  of  the 
advantages  resulting  from  concentration  of  capital  and  effort.  Many  of  these, 
realizing  that  small  capital  is  restricted  to  poor  methods  and  dear  production, 
either  sold  to  the  Standard  or  entered  the  combination.  In  not  a  few  cases 
wide-awake  refiners  took  stock  for  part  of  the  price  of  their  properties  and  en- 
gaged with  the  company,  adding  their  talents  and  experience  to  the  common 
fund  for  the  benefit  of  all  concerned.  Others,  not  strong  enough  to  have  their 
cars  and  provide  all  the  latest  improvements,  made  such  changes  as  they  could 
afford  to  meet  the  requirements  of  the  local  trade,  letting  the  larger  ones  attend 
to  distant  markets.  Some  continued  right  along  and  they  are  still  on  deck  as 
independent  refiners,  always  a  respectable  factor  in  the  trade  and  never  more 
active  than  to-day.  Those  who  would  neither  improve,  nor  sell,  nor  combine, 
sitting  down  placidly  and  believing  they  would  be  bought  out  later  on  their 
own  terms,  were  soon  left  far  behind,  as  they  deserved  to  be.  Let  it  be  said 
positively  that  the  Standard,  in  negotiating  for  the  purchase  or  combination  of 
refineries,  treated  the  owners  liberally  and  sought  to  keep  the  best  men  in  the 
business.  A  number  who  put  up  works  to  sell  at  exhorbitant  prices,  failing  in 
their  design,  howled  about  "monopoly"  and  "  freezing  out "  and  tried  to  pass 
as  martyrs.  It  is  true  hundreds  of  inferior  refineries  have  been  dismantled,  not 
because  they  were  frozen  out  by  a  crushing  monopoly,  but  because  they  lacked 
requisite  facilities.  The  refineries  in  vogue  when  the  Standard  was  organized 
could  not  stay  in  business  a  week,  if  resurrected  and  revived.  A  team  of  pack- 
mules  might  as  well  try  to  compete  with  the  New  York  Central  Railroad  as 
these  early  refineries  to  meet  the  requirements  of  the  petroleum-trade  at  its 
present  stage  of  perfection.  They  were  "frozen  out"  just  as  stage-coaches 
were  "frozen  out"  by  the  iron-horse  or  the  sailing-vessel  of  our  grandfathers' 
time  by  the  ocean-liner  that  crosses  the  Atlantic  in  six  days.  Every  labor- 
saving  invention  and  improvement  in  machinery  throws  worthy  persons  out  of 
employment,  but  inventions  and  improvements  do  not  stop  for  any  such  cause. 
Business  is  a  question  of  profit  and  convenience,  not  a  matter  of  sentiment. 
The  manufacturer  who,  by  an  improved  process,  can  save  a  fraction  of  a  cent 
on  the  yard  or  pound  or  gallon  of  his  output  has  an  enormous  advantage- 
Must  he  be  deprived  of  it  because  other  manufacturers  cannot  produce  their 
wares  as  cheaply?  Refining  petroleum  is  no  exception  to  the  ordinary  rule 
and  a  transformation  in  its  methods  and  results  was  as  inevitable  as  human 
progress  and  the  changes  of  the  seasons. 

Over-production   is  justly  chargeable    with   the   low   price   of  crude  that 


THE   STANDARD    OIL-COMPANY.  359 

wafted  many  producers  into  bankruptcy.  Regardless  of  the  inexorable  laws 
of  supply  and  demand,  operators  drilled  in  Bradford  and  Butler  until  forty- 
million  barrels  were  above  ground  and  the  price  fell  to  forty  cents.  Time  and 
again  the  wisest  producers  sought  to  stem  the  tide  by  stopping  the  drill,  which 
started  with  renewed  energy  after  each  brief  respite.  With  the  stocks  bearing 
the  market  the  dropping  of  crude  to  a  price  that  meant  ruin  to  owners  of  small 
wells  was  as  certain  as  death  and  taxes.  Gold-dollars  would  be  as  cheap  as 
pebbles  if  they  were  as  plentiful.  Forty-million  barrels  of  diamonds  stored  in 
South  Africa  would  bring  the  glistening  gems  to  the  level  of  glass-beads.  The 
Standard,  through  the  National-Transit  Company,  erected  thousands  of  tanks 
to  husband  the  enormous  surplus,  which  the  world  could  not  consume  and 
would  not  have  on  any  terms.  Hosts  of  operators  were  kept  out  of  the  sheriff's 
grasp  by  this  provision  for  their  relief,  using  their  certificates  as  collateral  during 
the  period  of  extreme  depression.  The  richest  districts  were  drained  at  length, 
consumption  increased  and  production  declined,  stocks  were  reduced  and  prices 
advanced.  Then  a  number  of  oil-operators,  foremost  among  whom  were  some 
of  the  men  whom  the  Standard  had  carried  over  the  grave  crisis,  thought  the 
National-Transit  was  making  too  much  money  storing  crude  and  tried  to  secure 
legislation  that  was  hardly  a  shade  removed  from  confiscation.  The  legislature 
refused  to  pass  the  bills,  the  company  voluntarily  reduced  its  charges  and  the 
agitation  subsided.  Thousands  of  producers  sold  or  entered  large  companies, 
into  whose  hands  a  good  share  of  the  development  has  fallen,  mainly  because 
of  the  great  expense  of  operating  in  deep  territory  and  the  wisdom  of  dividing 
the  risk  attendant  upon  seeking  new  fields.  Operators  who  had  to  retire  were 
"frozen  out"  by  excessive  drilling,  nothing  more  and  nothing  less  ! 

The  highest  efficiency  in  all  fields  of  economical  endeavor  is  obtained  by 
the  greatest  degree  of  organization  and  specialization  of  effort.  To  attack 
large  concerns  as  monopolies,  simply  because  they  represent  millions  of  dollars 
under  a  single  management,  is  as  stupid  and  unjust  as  the  narrow  antagonism 
of  ill-balanced  capitalists  to  organized  labor.  If  organized  capital  means  better 
methods,  greater  facilities  and  improved  processes,  organized  labor  means 
better  wages,  greater  recognition  and  improved  industrial  conditions.  Hence 
both  deserve  to  be  encouraged  and  both  should  work  in  harmony.  The 
Standard  Oil-Company  established  agencies  in  different  states  for  the  sale  of  its 
products.  As  the  business  grew  it  organized  corporations  uucler  the  laws  of 
these  states,  to  carry  on  the  industry  under  corporate  agencies.  Manufactories 
were  located  at  the  seaboard  for  the  export-trade.  It  was  easier  and  cheaper 
to  pipe  crude  to  the  coast  than  to  refine  it  at  the  sources  of  supply  and  ship  the 
varied  products.  Thus  the  refining  of  export-oil  was  done  at  the  seaboard,  just 
as  iron  is  manufactured  at  Pittsburg  instead  of  at  the  ore-beds  on  Lake 
Superior.  The  company  aimed  to  open  markets  for  petroleum  by  reducing 
the  cost  of  its  transportation  and  manufacture  and  bettering  its  quality.  It 
manufactured  its  own  barrels,  cans,  paints,  acids,  glue  and  other  materials, 
effecting  a  vast  saving.  On  January  second,  1882,  the  forty  persons  then  associ- 
ated in  the  Standard  owned  the  entire  capital  of  fifteen  corporations  and  a  part 
of  the  stock  of  a  number  of  others.  Nine  of  these  forty  controlled  a  majority 
of  the  stocks  so  held,  and  it  was  agreed  on  that  date  that  all  the  stocks  of  the 
corporations  should  be  placed  in  the  hands  of  these  nine  as  trustees.  The  trus- 
tees issued  certificates  showing  the  extent  of  each  block  of  stock  so  surrendered, 
and  agreed  to  conduct  the  business  of  the  several  corporations  for  the  best 
interests  of  all  concerned.  This  was  the  inception  of  the  Standard  Oil-Trust, 

24 


36o  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

the  most  abused  and  least  understood  business-organization  in  the  history  of 
the  race. 

The  Standard  Trust,  which  demagogues  lay  awake  nights  coining  language 
to  denounce,  did  not  unite  competing  corporations.  The  corporations  were 
contributory  agencies  to  the  same  business,  the  stock  owned  by  the  individuals 
who  had  built  up  and  carried  on  the  business  and  held  the  voting  power.  These 
individuals  had  combined  not  to  repress  business,  but  to  extend  it  legitimately, 
by  allying  various  branches  and  various  corporations.  The  organization  of 
the  Trust  was  designed  to  facilitate  the  business  of  these  corporations  by  uniting 
them  under  the  managment  of  one  Board  of  Trustees.  This  object  was  busi- 
ness-like and  laudable.  It  had  no  taint  of  a  scheme  to  "corner  "  a  necessity  of 
life  and  elevate  the  price  at  the  expense  of  the  masses.  On  the  contrary,  it  was 
calculated  to  enlarge  the  demand  and  supply  it  at  the  minimum  of  profit.  For 
ten  years  the  Standard  Trust  continued  in  existence,  dissolving  finally  in  1892. 
During  this  term  its  stockholders  increased  from  forty  to  two  thousand.  Many 
of  the  most  skillful  refiners  and  experienced  producers  joined  the  combination 
and  were  retained  to  manage  their  properties.  Each  corporation  was  managed 
as  though  independent  of  every  other  in  the  Trust,  except  that  the  rivalry  to 
show  the  best  record  stimulated  them  to  constant  improvement.  Whatever 
economy  one  devised  was  adopted  by  all.  The  business  was  most  systematic 
and  admirably  managed  in  every  detail,  running  as  harmoniously  as  the  differ- 
ent parts  of  a  watch.  Clerks,  agents  and  employes  who  could  sav-  a  few 
hundred  dollars  purchased  Trust  Certificates  and  thus  became  interested  in  the 
business  and  gains.  If  it  is  desirable  to  multiply  the  number  who  enjoy  the 
profits  of  production,  how  can  it  be  done  better  than  through  ownership  of 
stock  in  industrial  associations  ?  The  problem  of  co-operation  and  profit-shar- 
ing can  be  solved  in  this  way.  The  Standard  Trust  was  a  real  object-lesson  in 
economics,  which  illustrated  in  the  fullest  measure  the  benefits  of  an  asso- 
ciation in  business  that  affected  consumers  and  producers  of  a  great  staple  alike 
favorably. 

Misrepresentation  is  as  hard  to  eradicate  as  the  Canada  thistle  or  the 
English  sparrow.  Once  fairly  set  going,  it  travels  rapidly.  "A  lie  will  travel 
seven  leagues  while  Truth  is  pulling  on  its  boots."  The  Standard  is  the  target 
at  which  invidious  terms  and  bitter  invective  have  been  hurled  remorselessly, 
often  through  downright  ignorance.  Although  reputable  editors  might  be  mis- 
led, in  the  hurry  and  strain  of  daily  journalism,  to  give  currency  to  deliberate 
falsehoods  against  corporations  or  capitalists,  reasonable  fairness  might  be 
expected  from  the  author  of  a  pretentious  book.  Henry  D.  Lloyd,  of  Chicago, 
last  year  published  "Wealth  Against  Commonwealth,"  an  elaborate  work, 
which  is  devoted  mainly  to  an  assault  upon  the  Standard  Oil- Company.  The 
book,  notable  for  its  distortion  of  facts  and  suppression  of  all  points  in  favor  of 
the  corporation  it  assails,  caters  to  the  worst  elements  of  socialism.  The  author 
views  everything  through  anti-combination  glasses  and,  like  the  child  with  the 
bogie-man,  sees  the  monopoly-spook  in  every  successful  aggregation  of  capital. 
He  confounds  the  South- Improvement  Company  with  the  Standard  and  charges 
to  the  latter  all  the  offenses  supposed  to  lie  at  the  door  of  the  organization  that 
died  at  its  birth.  One  thrilling  story  is  cited  to  show  that  the  Standard  robbed 
a  poor  widow.  The  narrative  is  well  calculated  to  arouse  public  resentment 
and  encourage  n  lynching-bee.  It  has  been  repeated  times  without  number. 
Within  the  past  month  two  Harrisburg  ministers  have  referred  to  it  as  a  start- 
ling evidence  of  the  unscrupulous  tyranny  of  the  Standard  millionaires.  To 


THE  STANDARD   OIL-COMPANY.  361 

make  the  case  imposing  Mr.  Lloyd  informs  mankind  that  the  husband  of  this 
widow  had  been  "a  prominent  member  of  the  Presbyterian  church,  president 
of  a  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  and  active  in  all  religious  and  benevo- 
lent enterprises."  After  his  death  she  continued  the  business  until  she  was 
finally  coerced  into  selling  it  to  the  Trust  at  a  ruinously  low  price — a  mere  frac- 
tion of  its  actual  value.  Mr.  Lloyd  states  her  hopeless  despair  as  follows  : 

"  Indignant  with  these  thoughts  and  the  massacred  troop  of  hopes  and  ambitions  that  her 
brave  heart  had  given  birth  to,  she  threw  the  letter— a  letter  she  had  received  from  the  Standard 
regarding  the  sale  of  her  property — into  the  fire,  where  it  curled  up  into  flames  like  those  from 
•which  a  Dives  once  begged  for  a  drop  of  water.  She  never  reappeared  in  the  world  of  busi- 
ness, where  she  had  found  no  chivalry  to  help  a  woman  save  her  home,  her  husband's  life-work 
and  her  children." 

Is  this  harrowing  statement  true?  The  widow  continued  the  business  four 
years  after  her  husband's  death.  Competition  increased,  prices  tumbled,  the 
margin  of  profit  was  constantly  narrowing,  new  appliances  simplified  refin- 
ing-processes  and  the  widow's  plant  was  no  longer  adapted  to  the  business. 
She  sold  for  sixty-thousand  dollars,  the  Standard  paying  twice  the  sum  for 
which  a  refinery  better  suited  to  the  purpose  could  be  constructed.  Foolish 
friends  afterwards  told  her  she  had  sold  too  low  and  the  widow  wrote  a  severe 
letter  to  the  president  of  the  Standard.  The  company  had  bought  the  property 
to  oblige  her  and  at  once  offered  it  back.  She  declined  to  take  it,  or  sixty- 
thousand  dollars  in  Standard  stock,  evidently  realizing  that  the  refinery  had  lost 
its  profit-earning  capacity  and  that  even  the  new  management  might  not  be  able 
to  make  it  pay.  This  will  serve  to  illustrate  the  unfairness  of  "Wealth  Against 
Commonwealth,"  which  has  been  widely  quoted  because  of  its  presumed  relia- 
bility and  the  high  standing  of  the  publishers.  Yet  this  story  of  imaginary 
wrong  has  been  worked  into  speeches,  sermons  and  editorials  of  the  fiercest 
type  !  In  its  treatment  of  the  widow  the  Standard  was  truly  magnanimous. 
Few  business-men  would  consent  to  undo  a  transaction  and  have  their  labor 
for  naught,  simply  because  the  other  party  had  become  dissatisfied.  Possibly 
Mr.  Lloyd  would  not  be  as  generous  if  there  was  any  profit  in  the  transaction. 
If  the  Standard  cut  prices  to  ruin  the  widow  and  other  competitors,  would  not 
oil  have  gone  up  again  when  they  were  disposed  of?  No  such  upward  move- 
ment occurred.  The  widow  disappeared.  Many  small  refineries  disappeared. 
Monopoly  railroad-contracts,  if  such  ever  existed,  have  disappeared,  but  the 
price  of  refined-oil  has  been  falling  steadily  for  twenty  years,  declining  from  an 
average  of  nineteen  cents  a  gallon  in  1876  to  five  cents  in  1895.  The  potent 
fact  in  this  connection  is  that  the  Standard  has  continued  to  make  profits  with 
the  declining  price  of  oil.  This  conclusively  demonstrates  that  the  decline  was 
due  to  economic  improvements  in  the  productive  methods  and  not  to  a  mali- 
cious cut  to  ruin  a  widow  or  anybody  else,  as  Mr.  Lloyd  assumes.  Otherwise 
a  profit  accompanying  the  fall  in  price  would  have  been  impossible  and  the 
Standard  would  have  been  sold  out  by  the  sheriff  long  years  ago. 

All  the  dealers  in  slander  from  Lloyd  down  to  the  chronic  kicker  who  has 
attempted  to  make  money  by  annoying  the  Standard  have  played  the  Rice  case 
as  a  trump-card.  According  to  their  version,  Mr.  Rice  was  an  angelic  Ver- 
monter,  whose  success  inspired  the  Standard  with  devilish  enmity  and  it  deter- 
mined to  compass  his  ruin.  Rice  had  operated  at  Pithole  and  at  Macksburg 
and  owned  a  small  refinery  at  Marietta.  It  was  alleged  that  the  Cleveland  & 
Marietta  Railroad  discriminated  against  him,  doubling  his  freight-charge  and 
giving  the  Standard  a  drawback  on  all  the  oil  that  went  over  the  road.  This 
was  an  iniquitous  arrangement,  entered  into  by  the  receiver  of  the  road  and 


362  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL 

cancelled  by  the  Standard  whenever  a  report  of  what  was  done  reached  New 
York.  Mr.  Rice  had  paid  two-hundred -and-fifty  dollars  wrongfully,  the  money 
was  at  once  refunded  and  Mr.  Rice  did  not  harass  the  company  into  buying  his 
twenty-thousand  dollar  refinery  for  a  half-million.  This  will  serve  as  an  example 
of  the  dishonest  mistatements  that  had  wrought  lots  of  good  people  up  to  white 
heat.  The  sins  of  the  trusts  may  be  very  scarlet  and  very  numerous,  but  eco- 
nomic literature  should  not  pollute  the  sources  of  information  and  the  founda- 
tions of  public  opinion. 

When  the  history  of  this  wonderful  century  is  written  it  will  tell  how  an 
American  boy,  born  in  New  York  sixty  years  ago,  clerked  in  a  country- 
store,  kept  a  set  of  books,  started  a  small  oil-refinery  at  Cleveland  and  at  forty 
was  the  head  of  the  greatest  business  in  the  world.  This  is,  in  outline,  the 
story  of  John  D.  Rockefeller's  successful  career.  Yesterday,  as  it  were,  a 
youth  with  nothing  but  integrity,  industry  and  ambition  for  capital— a  pretty 
good  outfit,  too — to-day  he  is  one  of  the  half-dozen  richest  men  in  Europe  or 
America.  Better  than  all  else,  integrity  that  is  part  and  parcel  of  his  moral 
nature,  industry  that  finds  life  too  fruitful  to  waste  it  idly  and  ambition  to  excel 
in  good  deeds  as  well  as  in  business  are  his  rich  possession  still.  Gathering  the 
largest  fortune  ever  accumulated  in  twenty-five  years  has  not  blunted  his  fine 
sensibilities,  dwarfed  his  intellectual  growth,  stifled  his  religious  convictions  or 
absorbed  his  whole  being.  Increasing  wealth  brought  with  it  a  deep  sense  of 
increasing  responsibility  and  he  is  honored  not  so  much  for  his  millions  as  for 
the  use  he  makes  of  them.  Even  in  an  age  unrivalled  for  money-getting  and 
money-giving,  Mr.  Rockefeller's  keen  foresight,  executive  ability  and  wise  liber- 
ality have  been  notably  conspicuous.  His  faith  in  the  future  of  petroleum  and 
his  desire  to  benefit  humanity  he  has  shown  by  his  works.  Believing  in  the 
power  of  united  effort  to  develop  an  infant-industry,  his  genius  devised  the 
system  of  practical  co-operation  that  developed  into  the  Standard  Oil-Trust, 
against  which  prejudice  and  ignorance  have  directed  their  fiercest  fire.  Believ- 
ing in  education,  his  magnificent  endowment  of  Chicago  University — eight  to- 
ten-million  dollars — ranks  him  with  the  foremost  contributors  to  the  foundation 
of  a  seat  of  learning  since  schools  and  colleges  began.  Believing  in  fresh  air 
for  the  masses,  he  donated  Cleveland  a  public  park  and  a  million  to  equip  it 
superbly.  Believing  in  spiritual  progress,  he  builds  churches,  helps  weak  con- 
gregations and  aids  in  spreading  the  gospel  everywhere.  Believing  in  the 
claims  of  the  poor,  his  charities  amount  to  hundreds-of-thousands  of  dollars 
yearly,  not  to  encourage  pauperism  and  dependence,  but  to  relieve  genuine  dis- 
tress, diminish  human  suffering  and  put  struggling  men  and  women  in  the  way 
to  improve  their  condition.  He  has  differed  from  nearly  all  other  eminent  pub- 
lic benefactors  by  giving  freely,  quietly  and  modestly  during  his  active  life, 
without  seeking  the  popular  applause  his  munificence  could  easily  obtain. 

Mr.  Rockefeller  is  a  strict  Baptist,  a  regular  attendant  at  church  and  prayer- 
meeting,  a  teacher  in  the  Sunday-school  and  a  staunch  advocate  of  aggressive 
Christianity.  His  advancement  to  commanding  wealth  has  not  changed  his 
ideas  of  duty  and  personal  obligation.  He  realizes  that  the  man  who  lives  for 
himself  alone  is  always  little,  no  matter  how  big  his  bank-account.  He  and 
his  family  walk  to  service  or  ride  in  a  street-car,  with  none  of  the  trappings 
befitting  the  worship  of  Mammon  rather  than  the  glory  of  God.  Earnest,  posi- 
tive and  vigorous  in  his  religion  as  in  his  business,  he  takes  no  stock  in  the 
dealer  who  has  not  stamina  or  the  profession  of  faith  that  is  too  destitute  of 
backbone  to  have  a  denominational  preference.  The  president  of  the  Stand- 


THE  STANDARD   OIL- COMPANY.  363 

ard  Oil-Company  impresses  all  who  meet  hfm  with  the  idea  of  a  forceful, 
decisive  character.  He  looks  people  in  the  face,  his  eyes  sparkle  in  conversa- 
tion and  he  relishes  a  bright  story  or  a  clever  narration.  You  feel  that  he  can 
read  you  at  a  glance  and  that  deception  and  evasion  in  his  presence  would  be 
utterly  futile.  The  flatterer  and  sycophant  would  make  as  little  headway  with 
him  as  the  bunco-steerer  or  the  green-goods  vendor.  His  estimate  of  men  is 
rarely  at  fault  and  to  this  quality  some  measure  of  the  Standard's  success  must 
be  attributed.  As  if  by  instinct,  its  chief  officer  picked  out  men  adapted  to 
special  lines  of  work — men  who  would  not  be  misfits — and  secured  them  for  his 
company.  The  capacity  and  fidelity  of  the  Standard  corps  are  proverbial. 
Whenever  Mr.  Rockefeller  wishes  to  enjoy  a  breathing-spell  at  his  country-seat 
up  the  Hudson  or  on  his  Ohio  farm,  he  leaves  the  business  with  perfect  confi- 
dence, because  his  lieutenants  are  competent  and  trustworthy  and  the  machine 
will  run  along  smoothly  under  their  watchful  care.  He  has  not  accumulated 
his  money  by  wrecking  property,  but  by  building  up,  by  persistent  improvement 
and  by  rigidly  adhering  to  the  policy  of  furnishing  the  best  articles  at  the  lowest 
price.  Fair-minded  people  are  beginning  to  understand  something  of  the  ser- 
vice rendered  the  public  by  the  man  who  stands  at  the  head  of  the  petroleum- 
industry  and  more  than  any  other  is  the  founder  of  its  commerce.  He  has 
invested  in  factories,  railroads  and  mines,  giving  thousands  employment, 
developing  the  resources  of  the  country  and  adding  to  the  wealth  of  the  nation. 
He  is  human,  therefore  he  sometimes  errs  ;  he  is  fallible,  therefore  he  makes 
mistakes,  but  the  world  is  learning  that  John  D.  Rockefeller  has  no  superior  in 
business  and  that  the  Standard  Oil-Company  is  not  an  organized  conspiracy  to 
plunder  producers  or  consumers  of  petroleum.  It  is  time  to  dismiss  the  idea 
that  ability  to  build  up  and  maintain  a  large  business  is  discreditable,  that  mar- 
vellous success  is  blameworthy  and  that  business  -  achievements  imply  dis- 
honesty. 

William  Rockefeller,  who  resembles  his  brother  in  business  skill,  is  a 
leader  in  Standard  affairs  and  has  his  office  in  the  Broadway  building.  He 
was  a  member  of  the  first  Board  of  Trustees  and  bore  a  prominent  part  in 
organizing  and  developing  the  Oil-Trust.  He  is  largely  interested  in  railroads, 
belongs  to  the  best  clubs,  likes  good  horses  and  contributes  liberally  to 
worthy  objects.  The  Standard  folks  don't  lock  up  their  money,  loan  it  on 
mortgages  at  extravagant  rates,  spend  it  in  Europe  or  try  to  get  a  gold  squeeze 
on  the  government.  They  employ  it  in  manufactures,  in  railways,  in  com- 
merce and  in  enterprises  that  promote  the  general  welfare. 

From  the  days  of  the  little  refinery  in  Cleveland,  the  germ  of  the  Standard, 
Henry  M.  Flagler  and  John  D.  Rockefeller  have  been  closely  associated  in  oil. 
Samuel  Andrews,  a  practical  refiner  and  for  some  time  their  partner,  retired 
from  the  firm  with  a  million  dollars  as  his  share  of  the  business.  The  organi- 
zation of  the  Standard  Oil- Company  of  Cleveland  was  the  first  step  towards 
the  greater  Standard  Oil-Company  of  which  all  the  world  knows  something. 
Its  growth  surprised  even  the  projectors  of  the  combination,  who  ' '  builded 
better  than  they  knew."  Mr.  Flagler  devotes  his  time  largely  to  beneficent 
uses  of  his  great  wealth.  He  recognizes  the  duty  of  the  possessor  of  property 
to  keep  it  from  waste,  to  render  it  productive  and  to  increase  it  by  proper 
methods.  A  vast  tract  of  Florida  swamp,  yielding  only  malaria  and  shakes, 
he  has  converted  into  a  region  suited  to  human-beings,  producing  cotton,  sugar 
and  tropical  fruits  and  affording  comfortable  subsistence  to  thousands  of  prov- 
ident settlers.  He  has  transformed  St.  Augustine  from  a  faded  antiquity  into 


364  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

a  modern  town,  with  the  magnificent  Ponce  de  Leon  Hotel,  paved  streets,  ele- 
gant churches,  public  halls,  and  all  conveniences,  provided  by  this  generous 
benefactor  at  a  cost  of  many  millions.  He  has  constructed  new  railroads, 
improved  lines  built  previously,  opened  interior  counties  to  thrifty  emigrants 
and  performed  a  work  of  incalculable  advantage  to  the  New  South.  He  and 
his  family  attend  the  West  Presbyterian  Church,  of  which  the  Rev.  John  R. 
Paxton,  formerly  of  Harrisburg,  was  pastor  until  1894.  Mr.  Flagler  is  of  aver- 
age height,  slight  build  and  erect  figure.  His  hair  is  white,  but  time  has  not 
dealt  harshly  with  the  liberal  citizen  whose  career  presents  so  much  to  praise 
and  emulate. 

John  D.  Archbold,  vice-president  of  the  Standard  Oil-Company  and  its 
youngest  trustee  during  the  entire  existence  of  the  Oil-Trust,  has  been  actively 
connected  with  petroleum  from  his  youth.     No  man  is  better  known  and  better 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^    liked  personally  in  the  oil-regions.     From 
~]    his  father,  a  zealous  Methodist  minister,  and 
S    his  good  mother,  one  of  the  noble  women  to 
whom  this  country  owes  an  infinite  debt  of 
1    gratitude,  he  inherited  the  qualities  of  head 
;    and  heart  that  achieved  success  and  gained 
1    multitudes  of  friends.    A  mere  lad  when  the 
j    reports    of  golden    opportunities   attracted 
i    him  from  Ohio  to  the  land  of  petroleum,  he 
i    first  engaged  as  a  shipping-clerk  for  a  Titus- 
•j    ville   refinery.      His  promptness,  accuracy, 
j    and  pleasant  address  won  him  favor  and 
i    promotion.     He  soon  learned  the  whole  art 
of  refining  and  his  active  mind  discovered 
j    remedies  for  a  number  of  defects.     Adnah 

JOHN  D.  ARCHBOLD.  ™  Neyhart  induced  him  to  take  charge  of  his 

warehouse  in  New  York  City  for  the  sale  of 

refined-oil.  His  energy  and  rare  tact  increased  the  trade  of  the  establishment 
steadily.  Mr.  Rockefeller  met  the  bright  young  man  and  offered  him  a  respon- 
sible position  with  the  Standard.  He  was  made  president  of  the  Acme  Refin- 
ing Company,  then  among  the  largest  in  the  United  States.  He  improved  the 
quality  of  its  products  and  was  entrusted  with  the  negotiations  that  brought 
many  refiners  into  the  combination.  He  had  resided  at  Titusville,  where  he 
married  the  daughter  of  Major  Mills,  and  was  the  principal  representative  of 
the  Standard  in  the  producing  section.  When  the  Trust  was  organized  he 
removed  to  New  York  and  supervised  especially  the  refining- interest  of  the 
united  corporations.  His  splendid  executive  talent,  keen  perception,  tireless 
energy  and  honorable  manliness  were  simply  invaluable.  Mr.  Archbold  is 
popular  in  society,  has  an  ideal  home,  represents  the  Standard  in  the  directory 
of  different  companies  and  merits  the  high  esteem  ungrudingly  bestowed  by 
his  associates  in  business  and  his  acquaintances  everywhere. 

The  personal  traits  and  business-successes  of  Charles  Pratt,  an  original 
member  of  the  Standard  Trust,  were  typical  of  American  civilization.  The  son 
of  poor  parents  in  Massachusetts,  where  he  was  born  in  1830,  necessity  com- 
pelled him  to  leave  home  at  the  early  age  of  ten  and  seek  work  on  a  farm.  He 
toiled  three  years  for  his  board  and  a  short  term  at  school  each  winter.  For 
his  board  and  clothes  he  next  worked  in  a  Boston  grocery.  His  first  dollar  in 
money,  of  which  he  always  spoke  with  pride  as  having  been  made  at  the  work- 


THE  STANDARD   OIL-COMPANY.  365 

bench,  he  earned  while  learning  the  machinist-trade  at  Newton,  in  his  native 
state.     With  the  savings  of  his  first  year  in  the  machine-shop  he  entered  an 
academy,  studying  diligently  twelve  months  and  subsisting  on  a  dollar  a  week. 
Then  he  entered    a    Boston    paints-and-oil 
store,  devoting  his  leisure  hours  to  study  and 
self-improvement.     Coming  to  New  York  in 
1851,  he  clerked   in  Appleton's  publishing- 
house  and  later  in  a  paint-store.     In  1854  he 
joined  C.  T.  Reynolds  and  F.  W.  Devoe  in  a 
paints-and-oil  establishment.     Petroleum  re- 
fining became  important  and  the  partners  J  j   | 
separated  in  1867,  Reynolds  controlling  the 
paints-department  and  Charles  Pratt  &  Co. 
conducting  the  oil-branch   of  the  business. 
The  success  of  the  latter  firm  as  oil-refiners 
was  extraordinary.     Astral-oil    was    in    de- 
mand everywhere.    The  works  at  Brooklyn, 
continuous  and  surprising  as  was  their  ex- 
pansion, found  it  difficult  to  keep  pace  with                    CHARLES  PRATT 
the    consumption.     The    firm    entered    into 

the  association  with  the  Cleveland,  Pittsburg  and  Philadelphia  companies  that 
culminated  in  the  Standard  Oil-Trust,  Mr.  Pratt  holding  the  relation  of  presi- 
dent of  the  Charles-Pratt  Manufacturing  Company.  He  lived  in  Brooklyn  and 
died  suddenly  at  sixty-three,  an  attack  of  heart-disease  that  prostrated  him  in 
his  New- York  office  proving  fatal  in  three  hours.  For  thirty  years  he  devoted 
much  of  his  time  to  the  philanthropies  with  which  his  name  will  be  perpetually 
identified.  He  built  and  equipped  Pratt  Institute,  a  school  of  manual  arts,  at  a 
cost  of  two-million  dollars.  He  spent  a  half-million  to  erect  the  Astral  Apart- 
ment Buildings,  the  revenue  of  which  is  secured  to  the  Institute  as  part  of  its 
endowment.  He  devoted  a  half-million  to  the  Adelphia  Academy  and  a  quar- 
ter-million towards  the  new  edifice  of  Emanuel  Baptist  Church,  of  which  he 
was  a  devout,  generous  member.  His  home-life  was  marked  by  gentleness 
and  affection  and  he  left  his  family  an  estate  of  fifteen  to  twenty-millions. 
Charles  Pratt  was  a  man  of  few  words,  alert,  positive  and  unassuming,  some- 
times blunt  in  business,  but  always  courteous,  trustworthy  and  deservedly 
esteemed  for  liberality  and  energy. 

Jabez  A.  Bostwick,  a  member  of  the  Standard  Trust  from  its  inception, 
was  born  in  New  York  State,  spent  his  babyhood  in  Ohio,  whither  the  family 
moved  when  he  was  ten  years  old,  and  died  at  sixty-two.  His  business-educa- 
tion began  as  clerk  in  a  bank  at  Covington,  Ky.  There  he  first  came  into  pub- 
lic notice  as  a  cotton-broker,  removing  to  New  York  in  1864  to  conduct  the 
same  business  on  a  larger  scale.  He  secured  interests  in  territory  and  oil-wells 
at  Franklin  in  1860,  organized  the  firm  of  J.  A.  Bostwick  &  Co.  and  engaged 
extensively  in  refining.  The  firm  prospered,  bought  immense  quantities  of 
crude  and  increased  its  refining  capacity  extensively.  Mr.  Bostwick  was  active 
in  forming  the  Standard  Oil-Trust  and  was  its  first  treasurer.  He  severed  his 
connection  with  his  oil-partner,  W.  H.  Tilford,  who  also  entered  the  Standard 
Oil-Company.  Seven  years  before  his  death  he  retired  from  the  oil-business  to 
accept  the  presidency  of  the  New  York  &  New  England  Railroad.  He  held  the 
position  six  years  and  was  succeeded  by  Austin  Corbin.  Injuries  during  a  fire 
at  his  country-seat  in  Mamaroneck  caused  his  death.  The  fire  started  in  Fred- 


366  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE- OIL. 

erick  A.  Constable's  stables,  in  rear  of  Mr.  Bostwick's.  Unknown  to  his  coach- 
man, who  was  pushing  behind  it,  Mr.  Bostwick  seized  the  vvhiffletrees  of  a  car- 
riage. Suddenly  the  vehicle  swerved  and  the  owner  was  violently  jammed 
against  the  side  of  the  stable.  The  coachman  saw  his  peril  and  pulled  the  car- 
riage back.  Mr.  Bostwick  reeled  forward,  his  face  white  with  pain  and  sank 
moaning  upon  a  buckboard.  "  Don't  leave  me,  Mr.  Williams,"  he  whispered 
to  his  son's  tutor,  "  I  fear  I  am  badly  hurt."  The  sufferer  was  carried  to  the 
house,  became  unconscious  and  died  in  ten  minutes,  surrounded  by  members 
of  his  household  and  his  neighbors.  In  1866  Mr.  Bostwick  married  a  daughter 
of  Ford  Smith,  a  retired  Cincinnati  merchant,  who  removed  to  New  York  dur- 
ing the  war.  They  had  a  son  and  two  daughters.  The  daughters  married  and 
were  in  Europe  when  their  father  met  his  tragic  fate.  The  widow  and  children 
inherited  an  estate  of  twelve  millions.  Mr.  Bostwick  was  liberal  with  his 
wealth,  giving  largely  without  ostentation.  Forrest  College,  in  North  Carolina, 
and  the  Fifth  Avenue  Baptist  Church  of  New  York  were  special  recipients  of  his 
bounty,  while  his  private  benefactions  amounted  to  many  thousands  yearly. 
He  was  strict  almost  to  sternness  in  his  dealings,  preferring  justice  to  sentiment 
in  business. 

These  were  the  six  trustees  of  the  Standard  Oil-Trust  as  first  constituted  of 
whom  the  world  has  heard  and  read  most.  Many  of  the  two-thousand  stock- 
holders of  the  Standard  Oil-Company  are  widely  known.  Benjamin  Brewster, 
president  of  the  National-Transit  Company,  retired  with  an  ample  fortune.  His 
successor,  H.  H.  Rogers,  the  present  head  of  the  pipe-line  system,  is  noted 
alike  for  business-sagacity  and  sensible  benefactions.  The  great  structure  at 
No.  26  Broadway,  the  largest  office-building  in  New  York  occupied  by  one 
concern,  is  the  Standard  headquarters.  Each  floor  has  one  or  more  depart- 
ments, managed  by  competent  men  and  all  under  supervision  of  the  company's 
chief  officials.  From  the  basement,  with  its  massive  vaults  and  steam-heating 
plant,  to  the  roof  every  inch  is  utilized  by  hundreds  of  book-keepers,  account- 
ants, stenographers,  telegraphers,  clerks  and  heads  of  divisions.  Everything 
moves  with  the  utmost  precision  and  smoothness.  President  Rockefeller  has 
his  private  offices  on  the  eighth  floor,  next  the  spacious  room  in  which  the 
Executive  Committee  meets  every  day  at  noon  for  consultation.  Mr.  Flagler, 
Mr.  Archbold  and  Mr.  Rogers  are  located  conveniently.  The  substantial  char- 
acter of  the  building  and  the  business-like  aspect  of  the  departments  impress 
visitors  most  favorably.  There  is  an  utter  absence  of  gingerbread  and  cheap 
ornamentation,  of  confusion  and  perplexing  hurry.  The  very  air,  the  clicking 
of  the  telegraph-instruments,  the  noiseless  motion  of  the  elevators  and  the 
prompt  dispatch  of  business  indicate  solidity,  intelligence  and  perfect  system. 
From  that  building  the  movements  of  a  force  of  employes,  numbering  twice 
the  United  States  army  and  scattered  over  both  hemispheres,  are  directed. 
The  sails  of  the  Standard  fleet  whiten  every  sea,  its  products  are  marketed 
wherever  men  have  learned  the  value  of  artificial  light  and  its  name  is  a  uni- 
versal synonym  for  the  highest  development  of  commercial  enterprise  in  any 
age  or  country. 

Business-men  recall  with  a  shudder  the  frightful  stringency  in  1893.  All  over 
the  land  industries  drooped  and  withered  and  died.  Raw  material,  even  wool 
itself,  had  no  market.  Commerce  languished,  wages  dwindled,  railroads  col- 
lapsed, factories  suspended,  and  myriads  of  workmen  lost  their  jobs.  Merchants 
cut  down  expenses  to  the  lowest  notch,  loans  were  called  in  at  a  terrible  sacri- 
fice, debts  were  compromised  at  ten  to  fifty  cents  on  the  dollar,  the  present  was 


THE  STANDARD   OIL-COMPANY.  367 

-dark  and  the  future  gloomy.  The  balance  of  trade  was  heavily  against  the 
United  States.  Government  securities  tumbled  and  a  steady  drain  of  gold  to 
Europe  set  in.  The  efforts  of  Congress,  the  Treasury  Department  and  syndi- 
cates of  bankers  to  stem  the  tide  of  disaster  were  on  a  par  with  Mrs.  Partington's 
attempt  to  sweep  back  the  ocean  with  a  sixpenny-broom.  Amid  the  general 
•demoralization,  when  the  nation  seemed  hastening  to  positive  ruin,  one  splendid 
enterprise  alone  extended  its  business,  multiplied  its  resources  and  was  largely 
instrumental  in  restoring  public  confidence. 

The  Standard  Oil-Company,  unrivalled  in  its  equipment  of  brains  and  skill 
and  capital,  not  merely  breasted  the  storm  successfully,  but  did  more  than  all 
other  agencies  combined  to  avert  widespread  bankruptcy.  Through  the  sagacity 
and  foresight  of  this  great  corporation  crude  oil  advanced  fifty  per  cent,  .thereby 
•doubling  and  trebling  the  prosperity  of  the  producing  sections,  without  a  corres- 
ponding rise  in  refined.  By  this  wise  policy,  which  only  men  of  nerve  and  genius 
•could  have  carried  out,  home  consumers  were  not  taxed  to  benefit  the  oil-regions 
and  the  exports  of  petroleum-products  swelled  enormously.  As  the  result, 
while  the  American  demand  increased  constantly,  millions  upon  millions  of 
•dollars  flowed  in  from  abroad,  materially  diminishing  the  European  drainage  of 
the  yellow  metal  from  this  side  of  the  Atlantic.  The  salutary,  far-reaching  ef- 
fects of  such  management,  by  reviving  faith  and  stimulating  the  flagging  energies 
of  the  country,  exerted  an  influence  upon  the  common  welfare  words  and  figures 
cannot  estimate.  Petroleum  preserved  the  thread  of  golden  traffic  with  foreign 
nations. 

Hon.  Samuel  C.  T.  Dodd,  one  of  the  ablest  lawyers  Pennsylvania  has  pro- 
duced, is  general  solicitor  of  the  Standard  and  resides  in  New  York.  His  father, 
the  venerable  Levi  Dodd,  established  the  first  Sunday-school  and  was  presi- 
dent of  the  second  company  that  bored  for  oil  at  Franklin,  the  birthplace  of 
his  son  in  1830.  Young  Samuel  learned  printing,  graduated  from  Jefferson 
College  in  1857,  studied  law  with  James  K.  Kerr  and  was  admitted  to  the  Ve- 
xiango  Bar  in  August  of  1859.  His  brilliant  talents,  conscientious  application 
and  legal  acquirements  quickly  won  him  a  leading  place  among  the  successful 
jurists  of  the  state.  During  a  practice  of  ^^^09BB^. 

nearly  twenty-two  years  in  the  courts  of  the 
•district  and  commonwealth  he  stood  in  the 
front  rank  of  his  profession.  He  served  with 
credit  in  the  Constitutional  Convention  of 
1873,  framing  some  of  its  most  important  pro- 
visions. He  traveled  abroad  and  wrote  de- 
scriptions of  foreign  lands  so  charming  they 
might  have  come  from  Washington  Irving 
.and  N.  P.  Willis.  His  selection  by  the  Stan- 
dard Oil-Trust  in  1881  as  its  general  solicitor 
was  a  marked  recognition  of  his  superior  abil- 
ities. The  position,  one  of  the  most  promi- 
nent and  responsible  to  which  a  lawyer  can 
.attain,  demanded  exceptional  qualifications. 
How  capably  it  has  been  filled  the  records  of  SAMUEL  c.  T.  DODD. 

all    legal  matters  concerning    the  Standard 

abundantly  demonstrate.  Mr.  Dodd's  profound  knowledge  of  corporation-law, 
eminent  sense  of  justice,  forensic  skill,  rare  tact  and  clear  brain  have  steered 
the  great  company  safely  and  honorably  through  many  suits  involving  grave 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE- OIL. 


questions  of  right  and  millions  of  money.  The  papers  he  prepared  organizing 
the  Standard  Trust  have  been  the  models  for  all  such  documents  since  they 
left  his  desk.  Terse  logic,  sound  reasoning,  pointed  analysis  and  apposite  ex- 
pression distinguish  his  legal  opinions  and  arguments,  combining  the  vigor  of  a 
Damascus  blade  with  the  beauty  of  an  epic.  He  is  a  delightful  conversation- 
alist, sincere  friend  and  prudent  counsellor,  kindly,  affable  and  thorougly  up- 
right. His  home,  brightened  by  a  loving  wife  and  devoted  family,  is  singularly 
happy.  Amid  the  cares  and  anxieties  incident  to  professional  life  he  has  cul- 
tivated his  fine  literary-taste,  writing  magazine-articles  and  wooing  the  muses 
at  intervals  of  leisure  only  too  far  apart.  He  has  the  honor  of  writing  the  first 
poem  on  petroleum  that  ever  appeared  in  print.  It  was  a  rich  parody  on  By- 
ron's "  Isles  of  Greece"  and  was  published  in  the  spring  of  1860,  as  follows  i 


The  land  of  Grease  !  the  land  of  Grease  ! 

Where  burning  Oil  is  loved  and  sung  ; 
Where  flourish  arts  of  sale  and  lease, 

Where  Rouseville  rose  and  Tarville  sprung ; 
Eternal  summer  gilds  them  not, 
But  oil-wells  render  dear,  each  spot. 

The  ceaseless  tap,  tap  of  the  tools, 
The  engine's  puff,  the  pump's  dull  squeak, 

The  horsemen  splashing  through  the  pools 
Of  greasy  mud  along  the  Creek, 

Are  sounds  which  cannot  be  suppress'd 

In  these  dear  He-lands  of  the  Bless'd. 

Deep  in  the  vale  of  Cherry  Run 
The  Humboldt  Works  I  went  to  see, 

And  sitting  there  an  oil-cask  on 
I  found  that  Grease  was  not  yet  free  ; 

For  busily  a  dirty  carl 

Was  branding  "  bonded  "  on  each  barrel. 

I  sat  upon  the  rocky  brow 

Which  o'erlooks  Franklin — far-famed  town 
A  hundred  derricks  stood  below 

And  many  a  well  of  great  renown; 
I  counted  them  at  break  of  day, 
And  when  the  sun  set  where  were  they  ? 

They  were  still  there.     But  where  art  thou, 
My  dry-hole?     On  the  river-shore 

The  engine  stands  all  idle  now, 
The  heavy  auger  beats  no  more ; 

And  must  a  well  of  so  great  cost 

Be  given  up  and  wholly  lost  ? 


'Tis  awful  when  you  bore  a  well 
Down  in  the  earth  six-hundred  feet, 

To  find  that  not  a  single  smell 
Comes  up  your  anxious  nose  to  greet ; 

For  what  is  left  the  bored  one  here? 

For  Grease  a  wish  ;  for  Grease  a  tear  ! 

Must  I  but  wish  for  wells  more  bless'd  ? 

Must  I  but  weep?     No,  I  mu«t  toil ! 
Earth,  render  back  from  out  thy  breast 

A  remnant  of  thy  odorous  oil ! 
If  not  three-hundred,  grant  but  three 
Precious  barrels  a  day  to  me. 

What  !  silent  still  ?  and  silent  all? 

Ah  no  !  the  rushing  of  the  gas 
Sounds  like  a  distant  torrent's  fall 

And  answers,  bore  ahead,  you  ass, 
A  few  feet  more;  you  miss  the  stuff 
Because  you  don't  go  deep  enough  ! 

In  vain  !  in  vain  !    Pull  up  the  tools ! 

Fill  high  the  cup  with  lager-beer! 
Leave  oil-wells  to  the  crazy  fools 

Who  from  the  East  are  flocking  here* 
See  at  the  first  sight  of  the  can 
How  hurries  each  red-shirted  man  ! 

Fill  high  the  cup  with  lager-beer  ! 

The  maidens  in  their  promenade 
Towards  my  lease  their  footsteps  steer 

To  see  if  yet  my  fortune's  made  ; 
But  sneers  their  pretty  faces  spoil 
To  find  I  have  not  yet  struck  oil. 


Place  me  in  Oil  Creek's  rocky  dell, 

Though  mud  be  deep  and  prices  high  ; 
There  let  me  bore  another  well 

And  find  petroleum  or  die. 
No  more  I'll  work  this  dry-hole  here  ; 
Dash  down  that  cup  of  lager-beer. 

A  pretty  little  story  is  told  of  Miss  Edith  Rockefeller  while  at  boarding- 
school,  illustrative  of  the  manner  in  which  she  was  trained  by  her  father  to 
consider  herself  as  no  more  than  moderately  wealthy.  Miss  Edith,  with  a  party 
of  girls  from  her  class,  presented  herself  at  a  furniture-dealer's  to  choose  a  gift 
for  a  favorite  teacher.  The  price  of  the  pretty  writing-desk  was  more  than  the 
sum  of  money  in  their  possession.  The  girls  suggested  that,  if  the  desk  were 
sent,  they  would  forward  the  balance  as  soon  as  possible.  The  furniture-dealer 


THE  STANDARD   OIL-COMPANY.  369 

very  politely,  but  also  very  decidedly,  informed  the  girls  that  he  could  not  do 
as  they  asked.  "  But,"  he  said,  "  if  you  can  think  of  any  New- York  business- 
man with  whom  any  of  your  fathers  is  acquainted  and  who  will  vouch  for  you, 
the  matter  may  be  arranged." 

"Why,"  said  the  daughter  of  the  petroleum-magnate,  "  I  think  my  papa 
has  an  office  away  down  on  Broadway  ;  possibly  we  can  get  the  money  there." 

"Who  is  your  father?"  queried  the  dealer. 

"  His  name  is  Rockefeller,"  replied  the  girl ;  "John  D.  Rockefeller  ;  he  is 
in  the  oil-business." 

The  merchant  gasped  and  looked  at  the  girl  in  amazement.  "John  D. 
Rockefeller  your  father  ?  Is  John  D.  Rockefeller  good  for  twenty-five  dollars?" 
he  repeated.  Then  he  recovered  his  presence  of  mind  sufficiently  to  order 
the  desk  packed  up  and  sent  immediately,  while  Miss  Edith,  very  much  aston- 
ished at  his  unwonted  excitement,  thanked  him  with  pretty  and  simple  grace. 

Although  the  Standard  pays  the  highest  wages  in  the  world  and  has  never 
had  a  serious  strike  in  its  grand  army  of  forty-thousand  men,  not  one  cent  of  a 
reduction  was  ordered  during  the  panic.  No  works  stopped  and  no  employes 
were  turned  adrift  to  beg  or  starve.  On  the  contrary,  improvements  and  addi- 
tions were  made  continually,  the  force  of  workmen  was  augmented,  cash  was 
paid  for  everything  bought,  no  claims  remained  unsettled  and  nobody  had  to 
wait  an  hour  for  money  justly  due.  These  are  facts  for  the  toiling  masses, 
whom  prejudice  against  big  corporations  sometimes  misleads,  to  understand 
and  consider. 

Russian  competition,  the  extent  and  danger  of  which  most  people  do  not 
begin  to  appreciate,  was  met  and  overcome  by  sheer  tenacity  and  superior  gen- 
eralship. The  advantages  of  capable,  courageous,  intelligent  concentration  of 
the  varied  branches  of  a  great  industry  were  never  manifested  more  strongly. 
Deprived  of  the  invincible  bulwark  the  Standard  offered,  the  oil-producers  ©f 
Pennsylvania,  New  York,  West  Virginia,  Ohio  and  Indiana  would  have  been 
utterly  helpless.  The  Muscovite  bear  would  have  gobbled  the  trade  of  Europe 
and  Asia,  driving  American  oil  from  the  foreign  markets.  Local  consumption 
would  not  have  exhausted  two-thirds  of  the  production,  stocks  of  crude  would 
have  piled  up  and  the  price  would  have  fallen  proportionately.  Instead  of  rank- 
ing with  the  busiest,  happiest  and  most  prosperous  quarters  of  the  universe,  as 
they  are  to-day,  the  oil-regions  of  five  states  would  have  been  irretrievably 
ruined,  dragging  down  thousands  of  the  brightest,  manliest,  cleverest  fellows 
on  God's  footstool !  Instead  of  bringing  a  vast  amount  of  gold  from  England, 
France  and  Germany  for  petroleum  produced  on  American  soil,  refined  by 
American  workmen  paid  American  wages  and  exported  by  an  American  com- 
pany in  American  vessels,  the  trade  would  have  been  killed,  the  cash  would 
have  stayed  across  the  waters  and  the  country  at  large  would  have  suffered 
incalculably  !  These  are  things  to  think  of  when  some  cheap  agitator,  with  a 
private  axe  to  grind,  a  mean  spite  to  gratify  or  a  selfish  object  to  attain,  raises 
a  howl  about  monopoly  and  insists  that  the  entire  creation  should  "damn  the 
Standard !" 


H°  w  THE  PRICE  OF  Oi  i_  AFFECTS  THE  PRODUCER. 


XV. 


JUST  ODDS  AND  ENDS. 

How  NATURAL  GAS  PLATED  ITS  PART— FIRE  AND  WATER  MUCH  IN  EVIDENCE — 
CHANGES  IN  METHODS  AND  APPLIANCES— DESERTED  TOWNS — PECULIAR  COIN- 
CIDENCES AND  FATALITIES— RAILROAD  EPISODES — REMINISCENCES  OF  BYGONE 
SCENES— PRACTICAL  JOKERS — SAD  TRAGEDIES— LIGHTS  AND  SHADOWS  INTER- 
MINGLE AND  THE  CURTAIN  FALLS  FOREVER. 


Variety's  the  very  spice  of  life."— Cowper. 

Fuss  and  feather,  wind  and  weather,  varied  items  strung  together." — Oil  City  Derrick. 
Laugh  when  we  must,  be  candid  when  we  can." — Pope. 
"  '  A  picker-up  01  uncousidertd  trifles' 

From  many  sources  tacts  and  fancies  rifles." — Ibid. 

Every  house  should  have  a  rag-bag:  and  a  genera)  storeroom."—  Miss  Parloa. 
A  little  nonsense  now  and  then  is  re  ished  <>>•  the  wisest  men." — Holmes. 
"  Let  days  pass  on,  nor  count  how  many  swell 

The  episode  ol  lile's  hack  chronicle."— Lytton. 
"  Fond  memory  brings  the  light  of  other  days  around  me." — Ibid. 
"Close  up  his  eyes  and  draw  the  curtain  close."— Shakespeare. 


ATURAL-GAS,  the  cleanest,  slickest,  handiest  fuel 
that  ever  warmed  a  heart  or  a  tenement,  is  the  right 
bower  of  crude- petroleum.  It  is  the  one  and  only 
fuel  that  mines,  transports  and  feeds  itself,  without 
digging  every  spoonful,  screening  lumps,  carting, 
freighting  and  shoveling  into  the  stove  or  furnace. 
Getting  it  does  not  imperil  the  limbs  and  lives  of 
poor  miners—  the  most  overworked  and  underpaid 
class  in  Pennsylvania—  in  the  damp  and  darkness  of 
death-traps  hundreds  of  feet  beneath  the  surface  of 
the  ground.  You  drill  a  hole  to  the  vital  spot,  lay 
a  pipe  from  the  well  to  the  home  or  factory,  turn  a 
stop-cock  to  let  out  the  vapor,  touch  off  a  match 
and  there  it  is— the  brightest,  cleanest,  steadiest, 
hottest  fire  on  earth.  Not  a  speck  of  dust,  not  an 
atom  of  smoke,  not  a  particle  of  cinder,  not  a  taint  of  sulphur,  not  a  bit  of  ashes 
vexes  your  soul  or  tries  your  temper.  There  is  no  carrying  of  coal,  no  dump- 
ing of  choked  grates,  no  waiting  for  kindling  to  catch  or  green  wood  to  burn, 
no  scolding  about  sulky  fires,  no  postponement  of  heat  because  the  wind  blows 
in  the  wrong  direction.  Blue  Monday  is  robbed  of  all  its  terrors,  the  labor  of 
housekeeping  is  lightened  and  husbands  no  longer  object  to  starting  the  fire  on 
cold  mornings.  A  nice  blaze  may  be  let  burn  all  night  in  winter  and  kept  on 
tap  in  summer  only  when  needed.  It  is  lighted  or  extinguished  as  readily  as 

(37i) 


372  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

the  gas-jet  in  the  parlor.  It  melts  iron,  fuses  glass,  illumines  mills  and  streets, 
broils  steaks  to  perfection  and  does  away  with  many  a  fruitful  source  of  fam- 
ily-broils. It  saves  wear  and  tear  of  muscle  and  disposition,  lessens  the  pro- 
duction of  domestic  quarrels,  adds  to  the  pleasure  and  satisfaction  of  living  and 
carries  the  spring-time  of  existence  into  the  autumn  of  old  age.  Set  in  a  dainty 
metal  frame,  with  background  of  asbestos  and  mantel  above,  its  glow  is  cheer- 
ful as  the  hickory-fire  in  the  hearth.  It  gives  us  the  ingle-nook  modernized 
and  improved,  the  chimney-corner  brought  down  to  date.  It  glides  through 
eighty-thousand  miles  of  pipes  in  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  West  Virginia,  Indiana 
and  New  York  and  employs  a  hundred-million  dollars  to  supply  it  to  people 
within  reach  of  the  bounteous  reservoirs  the  kindly  earth  has  treasured  all 
through  the  centuries.  If  it  be  not  a  blessing  to  humanity,  the  fault  lies  with 
the  folks  and  not  with  the  stuff.  The  man  who  spouts  gas  is  a  nuisance,  but 
the  well  that  spouts  gas  is  something  to  prize,  to  utilize  and  be  thankful  for. 
Visitors  to  the  oil-region  or  towns  near  enough  to  enjoy  the  luxury,  beholding 
the  beauty  and  adaptability  of  natural-gas,  may  be  pardoned  for  breaking  the 
tenth  commandment  and  coveting  the  fuel  that  is  Nature's  legal-tender  for  the 
comfort  and  convenience  of  mankind. 

The  pretty  town  of  Fredonia,  in  New  York  state,  three  miles  from  Lake 
Erie  and  forty-five  south-west  of  Buffalo,  enjoys  the  distinction  of  first  using 
natural-gas  for  illuminating  purposes.  It  is  a  beautiful  place,  famous  for  fine 
roads,  fine  scenery  and  fine  vineyards.  Canodonay  Creek,  a  small  but  rapid 
stream,  passes  through  it  to  the  lake.  Opinions  vary  as  to  the  exact  date  when 
the  gas  was  utilized,  some  authorities  making  it  1821,  others  1824  and  a  few 
1829.  The  best  information  fixes  it  at  1824,  when  workmen,  in  tearing  down  an 
old  mill,  observed  bubbles  on  the  water  that  proved  to  be  inflammable.  The 
hint  was  not  lost.  A  company  bored  a  hole  one-inch-and-a-half  in  diameter 
into  the  limestone-rock.  The  gas  left  its  regular  channel,  climbed  the  hole, 
lighted  a  new  mill  and  was  piped  to  a  hundred  houses  in  the  village  at  a  cost 
of  one-fifty  a  year  for  each.  The  flame  was  large  and  strong  and  for  years 
Fredonia  was  the  only  town  in  America  lighted  by  "nature-gas."  A  gasom- 
eter was  constructed,  which  collected  eighty-eight  cubic  feet  in  twelve  hours. 
The  inhabitants  didn't  keep  late  hours.  A  mile  nearer  Lake  Erie  many  gas- 
bubbles  gamboled  on  the  stream.  Efforts  to  convey  the  gas  to  the  light-house 
at  Dunkirk  failed,  as  it  was  only  half  the  weight  of  air  and  would  not  descend 
the  difference  in  elevation. 

A  light-house  at  Erie  was  lighted  by  natural-gas  in  1831,  "the  Burning 
Spring,"  a  sheet  of  water  through  which  the  vapor  bubbled,  furnishing  the 
supply.  A  tower  erected  over  the  spring  held  the  gas  that  accumulated  dur- 
ing the  day  and  wooden-pipes  conveyed  it  at  night  to  the  light-house. 

Dr.  Charles  Oesterlin,  a  young  German  physician,  sixty  years  ago  un- 
packed his  pill-boxes  and  hung  out  his  little  sign  at  Findlay,  in  Northwestern 
Ohio.  He  was  an  expert  geologist  and  mineralogist,  but  the  flat  Black  Swamp 
afforded  poor  opportunities  to  study  the  rocks  underlying  the  limestone.  The 
young  physician  detected  the  odor  of  sulphuretted  hydrogen  in  the  town  and 
along  the  banks  of  the  Blanchard  River.  It  puzzled  him  to  guess  the  source  of 
the  odor.  He  spoke  to  the  farmers,  who  smelled  the  stuff,  knew  nothing  and 
cared  less  about  its  origin  or  properties.  The  Doctor  searched  for  a  sulphur- 
spring.  In  October  of  1836  the  solution  came.  A  farmer  was  digging  a  well 
three  miles  from  town.  A  spring  was  tapped  and  the  water  "boiled,"  as  the 
diggers  expressed  it.  Debating  what  to  do,  they  were  called  to  supper,  re- 


JUST  ODDS  AND  ENDS.  373 

turned  after  dark  and  lighted  a  torch  to  examine  the  well.  Holding  the  torch 
over  the  well  an  explosion  startled  them  and  a  flame  ascended  that  lasted  for 
days.  Nobody  was  seriously  hurt,  but  all  thought  the  devil  had  a  finger  in  the 
pie.  Dr.  Oesterlin  connected  the  incident  with  the  odor  and  it  confirmed  his 
theory  of  a  gas  that  would  burn  and  might  serve  as  fuel.  At  a  stone-quarry  he 
made  a  cone  of  mud  over  a  fissure,  covered  it  with  a  .bucket  and  applied  a 
light.  When  the  Doctor  picked  himself  up  in  an  adjoining  corn-field  the 
bucket  was  still  sailing  north  towards  Toledo.  Daniel  Foster,  another  Findlay 
farmer,  dug  a  well  in  1838.  Gas  issued  from  the  hole  before  water  was  seen. 
Foster  had  a  practical  mind.  He  inverted  a  copper-kettle  over  the  hole,  rigged 
a  wooden  pump-stock  beneath  the  kettle,  plastered  around  it  with  clay,  joined 
more  pump-stocks  together,  stuck  an  old  gun-barrel  in  the  end  of  the  last  one, 
lighted  the  gas  in  his  kitchen  and  by  means  of  the  flame  boiled  water,  roasted 
coffee  and  illumined  the  apartment.  Then  Dr.  Oesterlin  declared  Findlay  was 
right  over  a  vast  caldron  of  gas.  People  laughed  at  him,  adhered  to  tallow- 
dips  and  positively  refused  to  swallow  such  a  dose.  Petroleum-developments 
in  Pennsylvania  fortified  his  faith  and  he  sought  to  interest  the  public  in  a 
company  to  "bore  a  hole  twenty  inches  across."  Sinners  in  Noah's  day  were 
less  impervious.  Business-men  scoffed  and  declined  to  subscribe  for  stock. 
He  tried  again  in  1864  and  1867  with  the  same  result.  A  company  was  organ- 
ized to  manufacture  coal-gas.  He  talked  of  the  absurdity  of  making  gas  at 
Findlay  as  equal  to  setting  up  a  manufactory  of  air  or  water.  It  was  no  use. 
At  last  the  triumph  of  natural-gas  in  Pennsylvania  was  manifested  too  strongly 
for  the  obtuse  Findlayites  to  ignore  it.  In  1884  the  Doctor  managed  to  enlist 
four-thousand  dollars  of  capital  and  start  a  well  in  a  grove  a  mile  east  of  town, 
where  the  odor  was  pungent  and  gas  flowing  through  a  tile-pipe  he  planted 
in  the  ground  burned  for  weeks.  He  watched  the  progress  of  the  work  with 
feverish  anxiety.  The  hopes  of  fifty  long  years  were  to  be  grandly  realized  or 
dashed  forever.  Sleepless  nights  succeeded  restless  days  as  the  veteran's 
heart-beats  kept  time  with  the  rhythmic  churning  of  the  drill.  At  five,  six  and 
seven-hundred  feet  morsels  of  gas  quickened  the  expectations  of  success.  At 
eleven-hundred  feet,  in  the  Trenton  limestone,  on  November  tenth,  1884,  gas 
burst  forth  with  terrific  force.  The  well  was  drilled  sixteen-hundred  feet  and 
encountered  salt-water.  It  was  plugged  below  the  gas-vein,  the  gas  was 
lighted,  an  immense  flame  shot  up  and  for  months  a  quarter-million  feet  a  day 
burned  in  the  open  air.  Findlay  grew  from  five-thousand  to  fifteen-thousand 
population  and  manufacturing  flourished.  Dr.  Oesterlin,  slight  of  frame,  in- 
firm with  age,  his  thin  locks  and  beard  white  as  snow,  had  waited  fifty  years 
for  his  vindication.  It  came  when  he  had  reached  four-score,  full,  complete  and 
overwhelming.  He  bore  his  honors  meekly,  lived  to  round  out  eighty-two  and 
nowhere  is  it  recorded  that  he  even  once  yielded  to  the  temptation  of  remark- 
ing :  "  I  told  you  so  !" 

Gas  was  used  as  fuel  at  pumping-wells  on  Oil  Creek  in  1862.  It  was  first 
collected  in  "gas-barrels,"  one  pipe  leading  from  the  well  to  the  receptacle  and 
another  from  the  barrel  to  the  boiler.  Many  fires  originated  from  the  flame, 
when  the  pressure  of  gas  was  small,  running  back  to  the  barrel  and  exploding 
it.  A  pumper  at  Rouseville,  seated  on  a  gas-barrel  at  such  a  moment,  went 
skyward  and  may  be  ascending  yet,  as  he  never  returned  for  his  week's  wages. 
D.  G.  Stillwell,  better  known  as  "  Buffalo  Joe,"  drilled  a  gasser  in  1867  at  Oil 
City,  on  the  site  of  the  Greenfield  Lumber-Company's  office.  He  piped  the 
gas  to  several  houses,  but  the  danger  from  constant  changes  of  pressure  led  to 


374 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE  OIL. 


its  abandonment.  This  is  the  first  authentic  record  of  the  use  of  "the  essence 
of  Sheol  "  for  cooking  food  and  heating  dwellings.  In  1883  the  Oil-City  Fuel- 
Supply  Company  laid  a  six-inch  gas-line  to  wells  at  McPherson's  Corners,  Pine- 
grove  township,  eight  miles  distant.  The  gas  was  produced  from  the  second 
and  third  sands,  at  a  depth  of  nine  to  ten-hundred  feet  and  a  pressure  not  ex- 
ceeding two-hundred  pounds  to  the  square  inch.  In  1885  the  late  Samuel 
Speedily  started  a  well  on  his  farm  near  McPherson's,  intending  to  drill  three- 

' thousand  feet  in  search  of  the  Bradford  sand. 

Oil-bearing  strata  dip  twenty  feet  to  the  mile 
southward  and  Speechly  believed  the  northern 
rocks  existed  far  beneath  the  ordinary  third-sand 
in  Venango  county.  On  April  thirteenth,  at  nine- 
teen-hundred  feet, 
the  drill  penetrated 
what  has  since  been 
called  the  "Speech- 
ly sand,"  the  most 
extraordinary  and 
valuable  fuel-sand 
as  yet  discovered. 
In  this  sand  at  three 
feet  pressure  of  gas 
became  entirely  too 
great  to  keep  jerk- 
ing the  tools.  The 
gas  company  leased 
the  well  and  turned 
it  into  the  line  with- 
out being  able  to 
gauge  it  on  account 
of  the  high  volume. 

Speedily  commenced  a  second  well  and  the  company,  having  previously  laid 
a  new  ten-inch  line  to  Oil  City,  constructed  branches  to  Franklin  and  Titusville. 
The  second  well  proved  to  be  the  largest  to  the  present  time,  excepting  the  Big 
Moses  in  West  Virginia.  For  a  time  it  could  not  be  controlled.  The  roar  of 
the  escaping  gas  could  be  heard  for  miles.  Eventually  it  was  tubed  and  the 
pressure  was  six-hundred  pounds.  Many  wells  in  other  fields  have  had  greater 
pressure,  but  the  large  volume  of  the  Speechly  well  made  it  a  wonder.  One 
day  all  the  other  wells  connected  with  the  main-line  were  discontinued  from  the 
line  temporarily  and  the  Jumbo  turned  in.  The  flow  was  sufficient  to  supply 
Oil  City,  Titusville  and  Franklin  with  all  the  gas  required.  Hundreds  of  wells 
have  been  drilled  to  the  Speechly  sand  and  the  field  now  reaches  from  the 
southern  part  of  Rockland  township,  Venango  county,  to  Tionesta  township, 
Forest  county.  It  is  about  thirty  miles  long,  with  an  average  width  of  three 
miles,  while  the  sand  ranges  in  thickness  from  fifty  to  one-hundred  feet.  The 
pressure  gradually  diminishes.  It  requires  constant  drilling  to  keep  up  the 
supply,  the  Oil-City  Company  alone  having  about  four-hundred  wells. 

Samuel  Speechly  died  on  Sunday  night,  January  ninth,  1893,  aged  sixty-one, 
at  his  home  in  the  gas-district  bearing  his  name.  His  life  was  notably  eventful, 
adventurous  and  fortunate.  Born  in  England  in  1832,  at  fourteen  lie  began  to 
learn  locomotive-building  and  marine-engineering  at  Newcastle-on-Tyne.  At 


JUST  ODDS  AND  ENDS.  375 

twenty  Robert  Stephenson  &  Co.  sent  him  to  China  to  join  a  steamer  engaged 
in  the  opium-trade.  In  1855  ne  entered  the  service  of  the  Chinese  government 
to  suppress  piracy  on  the  coast,  and  in  1857  started  at  Hong  Kong  the  first  en- 
gineering-business in  the  vast  empire  ruled  by  the  pig-tailed  Brother  of  the  Sun. 
He  visited  America  in  1872  and  lived  in  Philadelphia.  Wanting  plenty  of  room, 
he  went  to  Northwestern  Pennsylvania,  resided  a  year  in  Cranberry  township, 
concluded  to  stay  and  settled  on  what  subsequently  became  the  famous  Speechly 
farm.  The  well  he  drilled  in  1885  had  neither  oil  nor  gas  in  the  usual  forma- 
tions. Veteran  operators  advised  him  to  abandon  it,  but  Speechly  entertained 
a  notion  of  his  own  and  the  world  knows  the  sequel.  He  was  married  in  China 
in  1864  to  Miss  Margaret  Galbraith,  who  survives  him,  with  two  daughters, 
Emily,  born  in  China,  and  Adelaide,  born  in  America.  His  widow  and  chil- 
dren occupy  the  old  home  on  the  farm. 

Bishop  Potter,  stopping  at  Narrowsburg  in  1854,  noticed  jets  of  gas  exuding 
from  the  bank  of  the  Delaware  river  at  Dingman's  Ferry,  forty  miles  above 
Easton,  and  published  an  article  on  the  subject.  A  company  in  1860  bored 
three  wells,  but  the  result  was  not  encouraging,  as  politicians  are  the  most  gase- 
ous bodies  Northampton  county  has  produced  for  thirty  years.  A  gas-well  at 
Erie  attracted  considerable  attention  in  1860  and  was  followed  by  a  number 
more,  which  from  a  shallow  depth  yielded  fuel  to  run  several  factories.  East 
Liverpool,  Ohio,  put  the  product  to  practical  use  early  in  the  seventies  as  a  sub- 
stitute for  coal.  The  first  well,  drilled  in  1860,  caught  fire  and  destroyed  the 
rig.  Geologists  say  natural-gas  is  the  disembodied  spirits  of  plants  that  grew 
in  the  sunshine  of  ages  long  before  the  foundations  of  the  buried  coal-measures 
were  laid,  so  long  ago  shut  up  and  forsaken  by  the  light-hearted  sun  that  it  is  a 
wonder  they  hadn't  forgotten  their  former  affinity.  But  they  hadn't.  They 
rushed  out  to  the  devouring  kiss  of  their  old  flame  at  the  first  tap  of  the  drill 
on  their  prison-house,  like  a  foolish  girl  at  the  return  of  a  fickle  lover.  They 
found  Old  Sol  flirting  with  their  younger  sister,  playing  sweet  to  a  lot  of  new 
vegetation.  Before  they  had  time  to  form  a  sewing-circle  and  resolve  that  all 
the  male  sex  are  horrid,  they  took  fire  with  indignation  at  his  fickleness  and  the 
tool-dresser's  forge  and  burst  with  a  tremendous  explosion.  The  fire  was 
quenched  and  gas  poured  out  of  the  pioneer-well  fifteen  years.  Street-lamps 
were  left  burning  all  day,  which  was  cheaper  than  to  bother  putting  them  out, 
and  East  Liverpool  prospered  as  a  hive  of  the  pottery-industry.  The  celebrated 
well  at  East  Sandy,  Venango  county,  which  gave  birth  to  Gas  City  in  1869, 
burned  a  year  with  a  roar  audible  three  miles.  Becoming  partially  exhausted, 
the  fire  was  put  out  and  the  product  was  used  for  fuel  at  numerous  wells.  The 
famous  Newton  well,  on  the  A.  H.  Nelson  farm,  was  struck  in  May  of  1872  and 
piped  in  August  to  Titusville,  five  miles  south  west.  Its  half-million  cubic-feet 
per  day  supplied  three-hundred  firms  and  families  with  light  and  fuel.  Henry 
Hinckley  and  A.  R.  Williams  organized  the  company,  one  of  the  very  first  in 
Pennsylvania  to  utilize  natural-gas  on  an  extensive  scale.  The  same  year  gas 
from  the  Lambing  well  was  piped  to  Fairview  and  Petrolia.  The  Waugh  well 
at  Millerstown  and  the  Berlin  at  Thompson's  Corners,  Butler  county,  were  the 
next  big  gassers.  The  great  Delamater  No.  2,  near  St.  Joe,  finished  in  1874, 
for  months  was  the  biggest  gas-well  in  the  world.  Its  output  was  conveyed  to 
the  rolling-mills  at  Sharpsburg.  The  first  gas-well  in  Butler  county  is  credited 
to  John  CrisweU,  of  Newcastle,  who  drilled  for  salt-water  in  1840  near  Centre- 
ville,  struck  a  vein  of  the  vapor  at  seven-hundred  feet  and  fired  it  to  heat  his 
evaporating-pans. 
25 


376  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

At  Leechburg  and  Apollo  natural-gas  has  been  used  in  puddling-furnaces 
since  1872.  It  will  supply  the  huge  mills  at  Vandergrift,  the  model  town  that  is 
to  be  the  county-seat  of  Vandergrift  county,  which  the  next  Legislature  will  set 
off  from  Armstrong,  Westmoreland  and  contiguous  districts.  It  was  the  fuel 
of  the  cutlery-works  at  Beaver  Falls  from  1876  until  the  wells  ceased  producing 
in  1884.  In  1875  Spang  &  Chalfant  piped  it  from  Butler  to  their  mills  in  the 
suburbs  of  Pittsburg.  Though  Pittsburgers  knew  of  its  value  in  the  oil-region 
for  twenty  years,  they  regarded  it  as  a  freak  and  not  calculated  to  affect  their 
interests  favorably.  Iron  manufactured  by  its  means  was  of  superior  quality, 
owing  to  the  absence  of  sulphur  and  the  intensity  of  the  heat.  In  1877  the  Hay- 
maker well  opened  the  Murraysville  gas-field,  but  that  immense  storehouse  of 
potential  energy  lay  dormant  until  Pew  &  Emerson  piped  the  product  to  Pitts- 
burg.  In  June  of  1884  George  Westinghouse,  inventor  of  the  air-brake  and  of 
various  electric-appliances,  struck  a  gas- well  near  his  residence  in  Pittsburg. 
From  that  date  the  development  was  enormous.  Wells  producing  from  two  to 
twenty-million  cubic-feet  a  day  were  in  order.  The  Philadelphia  Company — 
Westinghouse  was  its  president — alone  tied  up  forty-thousand  acres  of  gas-ter- 
ritory, drilled  hundreds  of  wells  and  laid  thousands  of  miles  of  pipes.  Hon. 
James  M.  Guffey  headed  big  corporations  that  supplied  Wheeling,  a  portion  of 
Pittsburg  and  dozens  of  smaller  towns.  The  coal  displacement  in  Pittsburg 
equaled  thirty-thousand  tons  daily.  Twenty  and  twenty-four-inch  mains  inter- 
sected the  city.  Iron,  brass,  steel  and  metal-working  establishments  consumed 
it.  Glass-factories  turned  out  by  its  aid  plate-glass  such  as  mankind  had  never 
seen  before.  The  flaming  breath  of  the  new  demon  transformed  the  appear- 
ance and  revolutionized  the  iron-manufacture  of  the  Birmingham  of  America. 
The  Smoky  City  was  a  misnomer.  Soot  and  dirt  and  smoke  and  cinders  dis- 
appeared. People  washed  their  faces,  men  wore  "biled  shirts"  and  girls 
dressed  in  white.  The  touch  of  a  fairy-wand  could  not  have  made  a  more  re- 
splendent change.  Think  of  green  grass,  emerald  hues,  clear  sunlight  and 
clean  walls  in  Pittsburg  !  At  first  timid  folks  feared  to  introduce  it,  because  the 
pressure  could  not  be  regulated.  All  this  has  been  remedied.  The  roaring, 
hissing  monster  that  almost  bursts  the  gauge  at  the  well  is  tamed  and  subjugated 
to  the  meekness  of  a  dove  by  valves  and  gasometers,  which  can  reduce  the 
pressure  to  a  single  ounce.  Queer,  isn't  it,  that  Pittsburg  should  be  metamor- 
phosed by  natural-gas — the  tires  of  hell  as  it  were — into  a  city  of  delightful 
homes,  an  industrial  paradise? 

Gas-wells  of  high  pressure  were  found  in  Ohio  by  thousands,  as  though 
striving  to  vie  with  the  oil-wells  which,  beginning  at  Mecca  in  1860  and  ending 
at  Lima,  stocked  up  twenty-million  barrels  of  crude.  Over  three-hundred  com- 
panies were  chartered  in  a  year  to  supply  every  town  from  Cincinnati  to  Ash- 
tabula.  Natural-gas  raged  and  blistered  and  for  a  term  was  the  genuine  "  Ohio 
idea."  For  thirty  years  wells  at  New  Cumberland,  West  Virginia,  have 
furnished  fuel  to  burn  brick.  The  same  state  has  the  biggest  gassers  in  exist- 
ence and  lines  to  important  cities  are  projected.  If  "the  mountain  won't  come 
to  Mohammed,  Mohammed  must  go  to  the  mountain."  Indiana  has  gas  and 
oil  in  four  counties,  with  Gas  City  as  headquarters  and  lots  of  fuel  for  houses 
and  factories  in  Indianapolis  and  the  chief  cities.  The  Hoosiers  have  carried 
out  the  principle  of  Edward  Eggleston's  Mrs.  Means:  "When  you're  a-gittin' 
git  plenty,  I  say."  Illinois  had  a  morsel  of  oil  and  gas  in  wells  at  Litchfield. 
Kentucky  and  Tennessee  are  blessed  with  "a  genteel  competence"  and  Kan. 
sas  has  not  escaped.  Michigan  has  gas-wells  at  Port  Huron  and  St.  Paul  once 


JUST  ODDS  AND  ENDS.  377 

boasted  a  company  capitalized  at  a  half-million.  Buffalo  inhaled  its  first  whiff 
of  natural-gas,  piped  from  wells  in  McKean  county,  on  December  first,  1886. 
Youngstown  was  initiated  next  day,  from  wells  in  Venango.  A  Mormon  com- 
pany bored  wells  at  Salt  Lake,  but  polygamy  was  not  supplanted  by  any  odor 
more  unsavory.  In  Canada  gas  is  abundant  and  Robert  Ferguson,  now  a  well- 
to-do  farmer  near  Port  Sarnia,  first  turned  it  into  an  engine  cylinder  as  a  joke 
on  the  engineer  at  the  pump  station  in  Enniskillen  township.  Steam  was  low, 
the  engineer  was  absent,  Ferguson  cut  the  pipe  leading  from  the  boiler,  con- 
nected it  with  one  from  a  gas-well  near-by,  opened  the  throttle  and,  to  his  as- 
tonishment, found  the  pressure  greater  than  steam.  Natural-gas,  a  gift  worthy 
of  the  immortal  gods,  worthy  of  the  admiration  of  Vulcan,  worthy  of  the  praise 
of  poets  and  historians,  the  agent  of  progress  and  saver  of  labor,  is  not  a  trifle 
to  be  brushed  off  like  a  fly  or  dismissed  with  a  contemptuous  sneer. 

Pittsburg  iron-works  and  rolling-mills  received  natural-gas  at  about  two- 
thirds  the  cost  of  coal.  The  coal  needed  to  produce  a  ton  of  metal  cost  three 
dollars,  the  gas  that  did  the  same  service  cost  one-ninety.  Besides  this  impor- 
tant saving,  the  expense  of  handling  the  fuel,  hauling  away  cinders  and  waiting 
for  furnaces  to  heat  or  cool  was  avoided.  Gas-heat  was  uniform,  stronger, 
more  satisfactory,  could  be  regulated  to  any  temperature,  turned  on  at  full  head 
or  shut  off  instantly.  Thus  Pittsburg  possessed  advantages  that  boomed  its 
manufactories  immensely  and  obliged  many  competitors  less  favored  to  retire. 
In  this  way  the  anomaly  of  freezing  out  men  by  the  use  of  greater,  cheaper 
heat  was  presented. 

On  March  seventeenth,  1886,  at  Pittsburg,  Milton  Fisher,  of  Columbus,  was 
the  first  person  to  be  incinerated  in  a  natural-gas  crematory.  In  fifty  minutes 
the  body  was  reduced  to  a  handful  of  white  powder.  The  friends  of  the  de- 
ceased pronounced  the  operation  a  success,  but  Fisher  was  not  in  shape  to  ex- 
press his  opinion. 

A  singular  accident  occurred  near  Hickory,  Washington  county,  on  the 
night  of  December  fourth,  1886.  Alfred  Crocker,  an  employe  of  the  Chartiers 
Gas-Company,  had  been  at  the  tanks  on  the  McKnight  farm  and  was  going  to- 
ward the  well.  The  connecting-pipe  between  the  well  and  tank  burst  with  ter- 
rible force,  striking  Crocker  on  the  left  leg,  blowing  the  foot  and  ankle  com- 
pletely off  and  injuring  him  about  the  body.  The  explosion  hurled  the  large 
gas-tank  a  hundred  feet.  The  young  man  died  next  morning. 

The  steam  tow-boat  Iron  City  once  grounded  near  the  head  of  Herr's  Is- 
land, above  Pittsburg.  The  stern  swung  around  and  caught  on  a  pipe  convey- 
ing natural  gas  across  the  Allegheny  river.  In  trying  to  back  the  vessel  off  the 
pipe  broke,  the  escaping  gas  filled  the  hold  and  caught  fire  from  the  furnace. 
An  explosion  split  the  boat  from  stem  to  stern,  blew  off  the  deck  and  blew  the 
crew  into  the  river.  The  boat  burned  to  the  water's  edge. 

Near  Halsey,  in  the  Kane  field,  James  Bowser  was  standing  on  a  gas-tank, 
while  a  workman  was  endeavoring  to  dislodge  an  obstruction  in  the  pipe  leading 
from  the  well.  The  removal  of  the  obstruction  caused  the  pent-up  gas  to  rush 
into  the  tank  with  such  force  that  the  receptacle  exploded,  hurling  Bowser  high 
in  the  air.  He  alighted  directly  in  front  of  the  heavy  volume  of  gas  escaping 
through  the  broken  pipe.  Before  he  could  be  rescued  he  was  denuded  of  all 
clothing,  except  one  boot.  His  clothing  was  torn  off  by  the  force  of  the  gas 
and  his  injuries  were  serious. 

Workmen  laying  pipe  to  connect  with  the  main  at  Grapeville  were  badly 
flustered  one  frosty  morning.  By  mistake  the  gas  was  turned  on,  rushing  from 


378  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

the  open  end  with  great  force.  It  ploughed  up  the  earth  and  pebbles  and 
ignited,  the  flinty  stones  producing  a  spark  that  set  the  whole  thing  in  a  blaze. 
Gas-wells  yield  liberally  at  Grapeville,  supplying  the  glass-works  at  Jeannette 
and  houses  at  Johnstown,  the  farthest  point  east  to  which  the  vapor-fuel  has 
been  piped. 

J.  S.  Booker,  an  Ohio  man,  claimed  to  spot  gas.  His  particular  virtue  lay 
in  the  muscles  at  the  back  of  the  neck,  which  rise  up  and  irritate  him  in  the 
presence  of  natural-gas.  This  is  ahead  of  rheumatism  as  a  rain-indicator. 
Booker's  own  story  is  that  an  attack  of  asthma  left  him  in  a  sensitive  state,  so 
that  when  he  passes  over  a  vein  of  gas  the  electricity  runs  through  his  legs,  up 
his  spine  and  knots  the  muscles  of  the  neck.  The  story  deserves  credit  for  its 
rare  simplicity.  With  the  whole  realm  of  fiction  at  his  command,  Booker 
chose  only  a  few  simple  details  and  was  content  to  pass  current  as  a  sort  of 
human  witch-hazel. 

At  Economy,  where  a  hundred  stand-pipes  for  natural-gas  illuminate  the 
streets,  bugs  and  fruit-vermin  were  slaughtered  wholesale.  In  the  mornings 
there  would  be  a  fine  carpet  of  bugs  around  every  post.  Chickens  and  turkeys 
would  have  a  feast  and  a  foot-race  from  the  roosts  to  see  which  would  get  to 
the  already-cooked  breakfast  first.  The  trees  came  out  in  bloom  earlier  and 
healthier  than  formerly,  because  the  vermin  were  destroyed  and  the  frosts  kept 
from  settling  by  the  gas-lights,  which  burn  constantly.  As  a  promoter  of  veg- 
etation natural-gas  beats  General  Pleasanton's  blue-glass  out  of  sight. 

Samuel  Randall,  the  Democratic  statesman,  visited  the  gas-wells  at  Mur- 
raysville  with  Hon.  J.  M.  Guffey.  From  a  safe  distance  the  visitor  threw  a 
Roman  candle  at  a  huge  column  of  vapor,  which  blazed  quicker  than  a  church- 
scandal,  to  Mr.  Randall's  great  delight.  President  and  Mrs.  Cleveland  were 
afforded  a  similar  treat  by  Mr.  Guffey.  The  chivalrous  host  chartered  a  train 
and  had  a  big  well  fired  for  the  distinguished  visitors.  The  lady  of  the  White 
House  was  in  ecstacies  and  the  President  evidently  thought  the  novel  exhibi- 
tion knocked  duck-shooting  silly.  Could  a  mind-reader  have  X-rayed  his 
thinking-department  it  would  likely  have  assumed  this  form:  "Mr.  Guffey, 
you  have  a  tremendous  body  of  gas  here,  but  /have  Congress  on  my  hands  !" 

Eii  Perkins  lectured  at  St.  Petersburg  one  night  and  next  day  rode  with 
me  through  part  of  the  district.  He  wanted  points  regarding  natural-gas 
and  smilingly  jotted  down  a  lot  of  Munchausenisms  current  in  the  oil-region. 
A  week  later  he  sent  me  a  marked  copy  of  the  New- York  Sun,  with  columns 
of  delicious  romance  concerning  gas-wells.  Eli  was  no  sfouch  at  drawing  the 
long-bow,  but  he  fairly  surpassed  himself,  Jules  Verne  and  Rider  Haggard  on 
this  occasion.  His  vivid  stories  of  tools  hurled  by  gas  a  thousand  feet,  of 
derricks  lifted  up  bodily,  of  men  tossed  to  the  clouds  and  picturesque  adven- 
tures generally  were  marvels  of  smooth,  easy,  fascinating  exaggeration.  Per- 
haps "if  you  see  it  in  the  Sun  it's  so,"  but  not  when  Eli  Perkins  is  the 
chronicler  and  natural-gas  the  subject. 

Fire  and  water  have  scourged  the  oil-region  sorely.  A  flood  in  March  of 
1865  submerged  Oil  City,  floated  off  hundreds  of  oil-tanks  and  small  buildings 
and  did  damage  estimated  at  four-millions  of  dollars.  Fire  in  May  of  1866 
wiped  out  half  the  town,  the  loss  footing  up  a  million  dollars.  The  most  ap- 
palling disaster  occurred  on  Sunday,  June  fifth,  1892.  Heavy  rains  raised  Oil 
Creek  to  such  a  height  that  mill-dams  at  Spartansburg  and  Riceville  gave  way, 
precipitating  a  vast  mass  of  water  upon  Titusville  during  Saturday  night.  With 
a  roar  like  thunder  it  struck  the  town.  Sleepers  were  awakened  by  the  resistless 


JUST  ODDS  AND  ENDS. 


379 


tide  and  drowned.  Refineries  and  tanks  of  oil  caught  fire  and  covered  acres  of 
the  watery  waste  with  flames.  Helpless  men.  women  and  children  tottered  and 
tumbled  and  disappeared,  the  death-roll  exceeding  fifty.  The  two  elements 
seemed  to  strive  which  could  work  the  greater  destruction.  Above  Oil  City  a 
huge  tank  of  benzine  was  undermined  and  upset  on  Friday  morning.  The 
combustible  stuff"  floated  on  the  creek,  which  had  risen  four  feet  over  the  floors 
of  houses  on  the  flats.  The  boiler-fire  at  a  well  near  the  Lake-Shore  tunnel 
ignited  the  cloud  of  benzine.  An  explosion  followed  such  as  mortal  eyes  and 
ears  have  seldom  seen  and  heard.  The  report  shook  the  city  to  its  foundations. 
A  solid  sheet  of  flame  rose  hundreds  of  feet  and  enveloped  the  flats  in  its  fatal 
embrace.  Houses  charred  and  blazed  at  its  deadly  touch  and  fifty  persons  per- 
ished horribly.  The  sickening  scene  reminded  me  of  the  Johnstown  carnage  in 


1889,  with  its  miles  of  flooded  ruins  and  dreadful  blaze  r.t  the  railroad-bridge. 
Whole  families  were  blotted  out.  Edwin  Mills,  his  wife  and  their  five  children 
died  together.  Heroic  rescues  and  marvelous  escapes  were  frequent.  John 
Halladay  Gordon  saved  forty  people  in  his  boat,  rowing  it  amid  the  angry 
flames  and  swirling  waters  at  imminent  risk.  The  recital  of  brave  deeds  and 
thrilling  experiences  would  fill  a  volume.  That  memorable  Sunday  was  the 
saddest  day  Oil  City  and  Tilusville  ever  witnessed.  The  awful  grandeur  of  the 
spectacle  at  both  places  has  had  no  parallel. 

Sweeping  into  the  yards  of  a  refinery  at  the  upper  end  of  Titusville,  the  water 
tore  open  a  tank  containing  five  thousand  gallons  of  gasoline.  Farther  down 
an  oil-tank  and  a  gasoline-tank  were  rent  in  twain.  Water  covered  the  streets 
and  shut  people  in  their  houses.  The  gas-works  and  the  electric-plant  were 
submerged  and  the  city  was  in  darkness.  At  midnight  a  curious  mist  lay  thick 
and  dense  and  white  for  a  few  feet  above  the  water.  It  was  the  gasoline-vapor, 


38o 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL 


a  cartridge  a  half-mile  long,  a  quarter-mile  wide  and  two  yards  thick,  with  a 
coating  of  oil  beneath,  waiting  to  be  fired.  One  arm  of  the  mist  reached  into  the 
open  furnaces  of  the  Crescent  Works  and  touched  the  live  coals  on  the  grate. 
There  was  a  flash  as  if  the  heavens  had  been  split  asunder.  Then  the  explosion 
came  and  death  and  havoc  reigned.  And  the  horror  was  repeated  at  Oil  City, 
until  people  wondered  if  the  Day  of  Judgment  could  be  more  terrifying.  The 
infinite  pity  and  sadness  of  it  all  ! 

The  fire  that  desolated  St.  Petersburg  started  in  Fred  Hepp's  beer-saloon. 
Hepp  had  a  sign  representing  a  man  attempting  to  lift  a  schooner  cf  lager  as 
big  as  himself  and  remarking,  "  Oxcuse  me  ov  you  bleese."  The  fire  "  ox- 
cused  "  him  from  further  exertion. 

The  burning  of  the  Acme  Refinery  at  Titusville,  on  June  eleventh,  1880, 
entailed  a  loss  of  six-hundred-thousand  dollars.  It  caught  from  a  tank  light- 


RUINS  OF  ACME  REFINERY,   TITUSVILI.E,  AFTER   FIRE  ON  JUNE   II,  iSSo. 

ning  had  struck.  By  great  efforts  the  railroad-bridge  and  the  Octave  Refinery 
were  saved.  The  fire  raged  three  days  and  nights  and  the  departments  from 
Warren,  Corry  and  Oil  City  were  called  to  render  assistance.  Hardly  a  town 
in  the  oil-regions  has  been  unharmed  by  fire  or  flood,  while  many  have  been 
ravaged  by  both. 

Charles  Highberger,  who  had  lost  a  leg,  was  elected  a  justice  of  the  peace 
at  Pithole  in  1866.  Attorney  Ruth,  who  came  from  Westmoreland  county, 
was  urging  the  conviction  of  a  miserable  whelp  when  he  noticed  Highberger 
had  fallen  asleep,  as  was  his  custom  during  long  arguments.  Mr.  Ruth  aroused 
him  and  remarked  :  ''I  wish  your  honor  would  pay  attention  to  the  points 


JUST  ODDS  AND  ENDS.  381 

which  I  am  about  to  make,  as  they  have  an  important  bearing  on  the  case." 
Highberger  opened  his  eyes,  glared  around  the  room  and  rose  on  his  crutches 
in  great  wrath,  exclaiming  :  "There  has  been  too  much  blamed  chin-whacking 
in  this  case  ;  you  have  been  talking  two  hours  and  I  haven't  seen  a  cent  of 
costs.  The  prisoner  may  consider  himself  discharged.  The  court  will  adjourn 
to  Andy  Christy's  drug-store."  That  was  the  way  justice  was  dispensed  with 
in  those  good  old  days  at  Pithole. 

"You're  not  fit  to  sit  with  decent  people  ;  come  up  here  and  sit  along 
with  me  !"  thundered  a  Butler  teacher  who  sat  at  his  desk  hearing  a  recitation, 
as  he  discovered  at  a  glance  the  worst  boy  in  school  annoying  his  seatmate. 

John  Wallace,  an  early  operator  at  Rouseville  and  merchant  at  Ryncl,  died 
in  1880.  Born  in  Great  Britain,  he  served  in  the  English  army,  participated  in 
the  Crimean  war  and  was  one  of  the  "Gallant  Six  Hundred"  in  the  desper- 
ate charge  at  Balaklava  immortalized  by  Tennyson.  His  shrewdness  and  enter- 
prise were  rewarded  with  a  snug  competence. 

J.  \V.  Sherman,  who  owned  the  Sherman  well  on  Oil  Creek,  died  at  Cleve- 
land lately.  The  ceaseless  march  to  the  tomb  is  rapidly  thinning  the  ranks  of 
the  men  who  bore  the  burden  of  pioneer-operations. 

Van  Buren,  Indiana,  is  experiencing  an  oil- boom  that  brings  comfort  and 
joy  to  the  unsophisticated  inhabitants.  The  biggest  well  in  the  Indiana  field 
was  struck  recently  near  the  town.  Oil  spurted  fifty  feet  above  the  derrick.  A 
local  paper  says  :  "The  strike  has  given  the  town  a  tremendous  boom.  Sev- 
eral real-estate  offices  have  opened  and  the  town-council  has  raised  the  license 
for  faro-banks  from  five  dollars  a  year  to  twelve  dollars."  At  this  rate  Van 
Buren  ought  soon  to  be  in  the  van. 

John  Jeffersey,  an  Indian  pilot,  died  at  Tionesta  in  1894.  One  dark  night 
he  plunged  into  the  Allegheny,  near  Brady's  Bend,  to  grasp  a  skiff  loaded  with 
cans  of  glycerine  that  brushed  past  his  raft.  Jacob  Barry  and  Richard  Spooner 
jumped  from  the  skiff  as  it  touched  the  raft,  believing  an  explosion  inevi- 
table, and  sank  beneath  the  waters.  As  "Indian  John"  caught  the  boat  he 
yelled:  "Me  got  it  him!  Me  run  it  him  and  tie!"  He  guided  the  craft 
through  the  pitchy  darkness  and  anchored  it  safely.  Had  it  drifted  down  the 
river  a  sad  accident  might  have  been  the  sequel.  Happily  Americanite,  quite 
as  powerful  and  much  safer,  is  displacing  Nitro- Glycerine. 

Andrew  Dalrymple,  who  perished  at  Tidioute,  was  at  his  brother's  well 
ten  minutes  before  the  fatal  explosion  and  said  to  the  pumper  :  "  I  have  five- 
hundred  dollars  in  my  trousers  and  next  week  I'm  going  west  to  settle  on  a 
farm."  Man  and  wife  and  money  were  blotted  out  ruthlessly  and  the  trip 
west  was  a  trip  into  eternity  instead. 

Frequently  loads  of  explosives  are  hauled  through  the  streets  of  towns  in 
the  oil-region,  despite  stringent  ordinances  and  lynx-eyed  policemen.  .  Once 
a  well-known  handler  of  glycerine  was  arrested  and  taken  before  the  mayor  of 
Oil  City.  He  denied  violating  the  law  by  carrying  the  stuff  in  his  buggy.  An 
officer  bore  a  can  at  arm's  length  and  laid  it  tenderly  on  the  floor.  "Now, 
you  won't  deny  it?"  interrogated  the  mayor.  "No,"  replied  the  prisoner, 
"there  seems  to  be  a  lot  of  it."  Then  he  hit  the  can  a  vicious  kick,  sending 
it  against  the  wall  with  a  thud.  The  spectators  fled  and  the  mayor  tried  to 
climb  through  the  back-window.  The  can  didn't  explode,  the  agent  put  it  to 
his  lips,  took  a  hearty  quaff  and  remarked  :  "Mr.  Mayor,  try  a  nip  ;  you'll  find 
this  whisky  goes  right  to  the  ticklish  spot !" 

Womanly  intuition  is  a  hummer  that  discounts  science,  philosophy  and 


382  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

rep-tape.  Mrs.  Katharine  E.  Reed  died  at  Sistersville  in  June  of  1896.  Her 
foresight  secured  fortunes  for  herself  and  many  others  in  Tyler  county.  Left  a 
widow  five  years  ago,  with  eight  children  and  a  farm  that  would  starve  goats  to 
death,  she  leased  the  land  for  oil-purposes.  The  test-well  proving  dry,  Mrs. 
Reed  implored  the  men  to  try  again  at  a  spot  she  had  proposed  for  the  first  ven- 
ture. The  drillers  were  hard  up,  but  consented  to  make  a  second  trial  when 
the  good  woman  agreed  to  board  them  for  nothing  in  case  no  oil  was  found. 
The  well  was  the  biggest  gusher  in  the  bundle.  To-day  it  is  producing  largely 
and  is  known  all  over  West  Virginia  as  "The  Big  Kate."  Mrs.  Reed  cleared 
two-hundred-thousand  dollars  from  the  sterile  tract,  which  would  sell  for  as 
much  more  yet,  and  her  children  and  neighbors  are  independent  for  life. 

A  young  lady  at  Sawyer  City  accepted  a  challenge  to  climb  a  derrick  on 
the  Hallenback  farm,  stand  on  top  and  wave  her  handkerchief.  She  was  to 
receive  a  silk-dress  and  a  ten-dollar  greenback.  The  feat  was  performed  in 
good  shape.  It  is  probably  the  only  instance  on  record  where  a  woman  had 
the  courage  to  climb  an  eighty-foot  derrick,  stand  on  top  and  wave  her  hand- 
kerchief to  those  below.  It  was  done  and  the  enterprising  girl  gathered  in  the 
wager. 

Mrs.  Sands,  formerly  a  resident  of  Oil  City,  built  the  Sands  Block  and  owned 
wells  on  Sage  Run.  McGrew  Brothers,  of  Pittsburg,  struck  a  spouter  in  1869 
that  boomed  Sage  Run  a  few  months.  A  lady  at  Pleasantville,  who  had  coined 
money  by  shrewd  speculations  in  oil-territory,  purchased  two-hundred  acres 
near  the  McGrew  strike,  while  the  well  was  drilling  and  nobody  thought  it 
worth  noticing.  The  lady  was  Mrs.  Sands,  who  enacted  the  role  of  "  a  poor 
lone  widow,"  anxious  to  secure  a  patch  of  ground  to  raise  cabbage  and  garden- 
truck,  to  get  the  property.  She  worked  so  skillfully  upon  the  sensibilities  of 
the  Philadelphians  owning  the  land  that  they  sold  it  for  a  trifle  "to  help  a  needy 
woman  !"  Her  first  well,  finished  the  night  before  the  "  thirty-day  shut  down," 
flowed  five-hundred  barrels  each  twenty-four  hours.  The  "  poor  lone  widow" 
valued  the  tract  at  a  half-million  dollars  and  at  one  time  was  rated  at  six-hun- 
dred-thousand, all  "earned  by  her  own  self."  Yet  weak-minded  men  and 
strong-minded  women  talk  of  the  suppressed  sex  ! 

A  Franklin  lady  asked  her  husband  one  morning  to  buy  five-thousand  bar- 
rels of  oil  on  her  account,  saying  she  had  an  impression  the  price  would  ad- 
vance very  soon.  To  please  her  he  promised  to  comply.  At  dinner  she  in- 
quired about  it  and  was  told  the  order  had  been  filled  by  an  Oil-City  broker. 
In  the  afternoon  the  price  advanced  rapidly.  Next  morning  the  lady  asked 
hubby  to  have  the  lot  sold  and  bring  her  the  profits.  The  miserable  husband 
was  in  for  it.  He  dared  not  confess  his  deception  and  the  only  alternative  was 
to  pay  the  difference  and  keep  mum.  His  sickly  smile,  as  he  drew  fifteen-hun- 
dred dollars  out  of  the  bank  to  hand  his  spouse,  would  have  cracked  a  mirror 
an  inch  thick.  Solomon  got  a  good  deal  of  experience  from  his  wives  and  that 
Franklin  husband  began  to  think  "a  woman  might  know  something  about 
business  after  all." 

Mrs.  David  Hanna,  of  Oil  City,  is  not  one  of  the  women  whose  idea  of  a 
good  time  is  to  go  to  a  funeral  and  cry.  She  tried  a  bit  of  speculation  in  certifi- 
cates and  the  market  went  against  her.  She  tried  again  and  again,  but  the 
losses  exceeded  the  profits  by  a  large  majority.  The  phenomenal  spurt  in  April 
of  1895  was  her  opportunity.  She  held  down  a  seat  in  the  Oil-Exchange  gallery 
three  days,  sold  at  almost  the  top  notch  and  cleared  twelve-thousand  dollars. 
People  applauded  and  declared  the  plucky  little  woman  "had  a  great  head." 


JUST  ODDS  AND  ENDS.  383 

A  little  girl  at  Titusville,  when  she  had  prayed  to  have  herself  and  all  of  her 
relations  cared  for  during  the  night,  added  :  "And,  dear  God,  do  try  and  take 
good  care  of  yourself,  for  if  anything  should  happen  to  you  we  would  all  go  to 
pieces." 

A  Franklin  mother  was  putting  her  three  children  to  bed.  They  knelt  down 
to  say  their  prayers.  The  elder  of  the  two  girls  struck  a  snag  in  "Now  I  lay 
me  down  to  sleep."  Three  lines  went  through  all  right,  but  she  stuck  on  the 
fourth  and  kept  repeating,  "  If  I  should  die  before  I  wake,  If  I  should  die,  If 

I  " .  At  last  she  turned  to  her  brother,  the  eldest  of  the  trio,  and  inquired  : 

"What  comes  after  "  If  I  should  die?"  Quick  as  a  flash  and  direct  as  a  rifle- 
ball  came  the  unexpected  answer  :  "  Why,  a  funeral,  you  darned  fool !"  This 
broke  up  the  prayer- meeting  in  short  metre. 

Hon.  Thomas  W.  Phillips,  the  wealthy  oil-producer,  who  declines  to  serve 
a  third  term  in  Congress,  labored  zealously  to  secure  legislation  that  would  set- 
tle differences  between  employers  and  employes  by  arbitration.  He  offered  to 
pay  a  quarter-million  dollars  to  meet  the  expense  of  a  thorough  Congressional 
inquiry  into  the  condition  of  labor,  with  a  view  to  the  presentation  of  an  authori- 
tative report  and  the  adoption  of  measures  calculated  to  prevent  strikes  and 
promote  friendly  relations.  When  the  suspension  of  drilling  in  the  oil-region 
deprived  thousands  of  work  for  some  months,  Mr.  Phillips  was  especially  active 
in  effecting  arrangements  by  which  they  received  the  profits  upon  two-million 
barrels  of  crude  set  apart  for  their  benefit.  The  Standard  Oil-Company,  always 
considerate  to  labor,  heartily  furthered  the  plan,  which  the  rise  in  oil  rendered 
a  signal  success.  This  was  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  any  business  that 
liberal  provision  was  made  for  workmen  thrown  out  of  employment  by  the 
stoppage  of  operations.  What  a  contrast  to  the  grinding  and  squeezing  and 
shooting  of  miners  and  coke-workers  by  "  coal-barons  "  and  "iron-kings!" 
When  you  come  to  size  them  up  the  oil-men  don't  have  to  shrink  into  a  hole  to 
avoid  close  scrutiny.  They  pay  their  bills,  are  just  to  honest  toil,  generous  to 
the  poor  and  manly  from  top  to  toe.  They  may  not  relish  rheumatism,  but  this 
doesn't  compel  them  to  hate  the  poor  fellow  it  afflicts.  As  Uncle  Toby  ob- 
served :  "God  bless  us  every  one!" 

Thirty  miles  from  Cripple  Creek,  Colorado,  the  new  town  of  Guffey  is  the 
focus  of  a  silver-development  that  completely  overshadows  its  golden  neighbor. 
The  place  is  fitly  named  for  Hon.  James  M.  Guffey,  the  successful  Pennsylva- 
nia oil-producer  and  political  leader.  Purchasing  an  option  on  an  undeveloped 
mine  near  the  famous  Trade  Dollar,  he  put  in  machinery  and  spent  a  large 
sum  to  test  the  claim.  The  result  is  one  of  the  richest  silver-mines  on  earth — 
millions  have  been  offered  for  it— floods  of  congratulations  for  the  clever  own- 
ers and  a  deluge  of  good  wishes  for  the  dazzling  town  that  is  to-day  the  most 
interesting  spot  in  the  Centennial  State. 

You  may  meet  them  at  Oshkosh  or  Kalamazoo,  in  New  York  or  Washing- 
ton, around  Chicago  or  San  Ftancisco,  about  New  Orleans  or  Mexico,  but  not 
a  few  men  conspicuously  successful  in  finance,  manufactures,  literature  or  pol- 
itics have  been  mixed  up  with  oil  some  time  in  their  career.  Commodore 
Vanderbilt,  Jay  Gould,  James  Fisk,  Thomas  A.  Scott,  John  A.  Garrett  and  A. 
J.  Cassatt  profited  largely  from  their  oil-interests.  Mr.  Cassatt,  superintending 
the  Warren  &  Franklin  Railroad,  acquired  the  knowledge  of  oil-affairs  he 
turned  to  account  in  shaping  the  transportation-policy  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Railroad.  Besides  the  colossal  gains  of  the  Standard  Oil-Company,  petroleum 
won  for  such  men  as  Captain  J.  J.  Vandergrift,  J.  T.  Jones,  J.  M  Guffey,  John 


384  SKETCHES   IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

McKeown,  John  Galey,  J.  J.  Carter,  Charles  Miller,  Frederic  Prentice,  S.  P. 
McCalmont,  William  Hasson,  George  V.  Forman,  Thomas  W.  Phillips,  John 
Satterfield,  H.  L.  Taylor,  John  Pitcairn,  Theodore  Barnsdall,  E.  O.  Emerson, 
Dr.  Roberts,  George  K.  Anderson,  Jonathan  Watson,  Hunter  &  Cummings, 
Greenlee  &  Forst,  the  Grandins,  the  Mitchells,  the  Fishers,  the  McKinneys, 
the  Plumers,  the  Lambertons  and  a  host  of  others  from  one  t  j  ten-millions 
apiece.  Certainly  coal,  cotton  or  iron,  or  all  three  combined,  can  show  no 
such  list.  Oil  augmented  the  fortunes  of  Stephen  Weld,  Oliver  Ames  and  F. 
Gordon  Dexter,  the  largest  in  New  England.  It  put  big  money  into  the  pock- 
ets of  Andrew  Carnegie,  William  H.  Kemble  and  Dr.  Hostetter.  To  it  the 
great  tube-works,  employing  thousands  of  men,  and  multitudes  of  manufac- 
turing-plants owe  their  existence  and  prosperity.  Some  of  the  brightest  news- 
paper-writers in  New  York,  Philadelphia  and  Chicago  learned  force  and  direct- 
ness amid  the  exciting  scenes  of  Oildom.  Several  are  authors  of  repute  and 
contributors  to  magazines.  Grover  Cleveland,  while  mayor  of  Buffalo,  im- 
bibed business-wisdom  and  notions  of  sturdy  independence  from  his  acquaint- 
ance with  Bradford  oil-operators.  Governor  Curtin  was  a  large  stockholder 
in  oil-companies  on  Cherry  Run  and  Governor  Beaver  may  claim  kin  with  the 
fraternity  as  the  owner  of  oil-wells  in  Forest  county.  No  member  of  Congress 
for  a  generation  made  a  better  record  than  J.  H.  Osmer,  Dr.  Egbert,  J.  C.  Sib- 
ley,  C.  W.  Stone  and  Thomas  W.  Phillips.  Galusha  A.  Grow  was  president 
of  tha  Reno  Oil-Company.  Mr.  Sibley  was  tendered  the  second  place  on  the 
Democratic  ticket  at  Chicago  and  could  have  been  nominated  for  president, 
instead  of  William  J.  Bryan,  but  for  the  stupid  hostility  of  a  Pennsylvania  boss. 
More  capable,  influential  members  than  W.  S.  McMullan,  Lewis  Emery,  J.  W. 
Lee,  W.  R.  Crawford,  William  H.  Andrews,  Captain  Hasson,  Willis  J.  Hulings, 
Henry  F.  James  and  John  L.  Mattox  never  sat  in  t!:e  State  Senate  or  the  Leg- 
islature. And  so  it  goes  in  every  part  of  the  country,  in  every  profession,  in 
every  branch  of  industry  and  in  every  business  requiring  vigor  and  enterprise. 

B.  D.  J.  McKeown  is  probably  the  only  millionaire  ball-player  in  the  United 
States.  He  belongs  to  the  Washington  team,  which  is  a  member  of  the  Penn- 
sylvania State-League,  and  has  played  first  base  with  the  nine  the  entire  sea- 
son. He  is  a  son  of  the  late  John  McKeown  and  a  keen  man  of  affairs.  A  clean 
fielder,  heavy  batter  and  swift  base-runner,  he  has  a  fine  reputation  as  a  ball- 
player. As  a  drawing  attraction  he  is  valuable,  many  who  take  little  interest 
in  the  game  going  when  his  club  plays,  simply  to  see  a  young  fellow  with  two  or 
three-million  dollars  at  his  command  in  the  diamond. 

Jokers  who  cultivate  a  musty  taste  and  dense  ignorance  poke  fun  at  Phila- 
delphia as  a  city  of  the  snail-pace  variety.  They  hint  that  it  moves  like  an  ice- 
wagon  and  that  a  man,  tumbling  from  the  roof  of  a  thirteen-story  building,  de- 
scended too'slowly  upon  the  granite-pavement  to  be  jarred  by  the  fall.  They 
forget  that  Philadelphia  is  the  greatest  manufacturing  city  in  America,  that  it 
boasts  the  finest  municipal-building  in  the  world,  that  it  has  unrivaled  parks, 
that  it  contains  more  owners  of  their  homes  than  New  York  and  Chicago 
combined,  that  it  had  cable-cars  and  asphalt-streets  before  such  things  were 
dreamed  of  in  Gotham  or  Washington,  that  it  possesses  some  of  the  greatest 
merchants  on  earth  and  sports  trick-politicians  who  could  give  Tammany  no 
end  of  fresh  points  on  the  game.  One  of  the  busiest  spots  in  the  Quaker  City, 
north-west  corner  of  Tenth  and  Market  streets,  is  Martindale  &  Co.'s.  Thomas 
Martindale,  who  leads  the  retail -grocery  trade,  brought  with  him  to  Philadel- 
phia twenty  years  ago  the  vim  and  energy  that  gained  him  fame  and  fortune  in 


JUST  ODDS  AND   ENDS.  385 

the  oil-region.  He  clerked  for  years  in  a  Boston  dry-goods  store.  Tapes  and 
ribbons  and  nipping  off  samples  for  shoppers  were  not  adapted  to  the  ambitious 
young  man,  who  had  a  soul  for  something  larger  and  better.  He  quit  Massa- 
chusetts for  Pennsylvania,  first  looking  about  Pittsburg  and  landing  at  Oil  City 
in  1869.  Business  was  lively  and  he  liked 
the  style  of  the  place.  He  took  the  first  job 
that  offered — grubbing  out  a  road  to  his  wells 
for  John  S.  Rich.  He  used  eyes  and  brain 
and  soon  knew  how  to  "run  engine"  and 
manage  a  well.  Three  dollars  a  day  as  a 
pumper  was  the  first  promotion.  He  boarded 
at  a  house  on  Charley  Run  whose  proprietor 
sold  vegetables  and  green  groceries.  Mar- 
tindale  bought  a  half-interest  and  moved  his 
trunk  into  the  dusty  shop.  He  had  struck 
his  gait  and  the  result  of  his  advent  was  soon 
apparent.  His  partner  sold  him  the  whole 
concern.  He  brightened  the  premises  and 
painted  the  front  red,  white  and  blue.  The 

"Checkered  Store,"  a  frame   in  the  Third  THOMAS  MAKTINDALE 

Ward,  became  noted  for  excellent  wares  and 

moderate  prices.  A  delivery-system  was  introduced  which  quickly  grew  from 
a  few  packages  in  a  hired-dray  to  double-teams  and  handsome  wagons.  The 
"  Blue  Store,"  bigger  and  finer,  was  rented  to  secure  necessary  room.  Every 
day  the  Derrick  printed  a  new  "ad."  People  read  it  eagerly  and  waited  for 
its  fresh  announcement  impatiently.  A  big  brick-store  at  the  river-bridge  was 
the  next  step.  Trade  expanded  and  customers  came  from  the  whole  region  to 
"the  Mammoth."  A  good  offer  for  the  establishment  was  accepted  and  the 
store  is  still  conducted  by  Steffee  &  Co.  Martindale  removed  to  Philadelphia 
and  infused  new  life  into  the  grocery-trade.  He  opened  the  first  California 
store.  It  was  a  revelation  to  the  citizens  to  be  able  to  get  wines  and  fruits 
straight  from  the  Pacific  coast.  They  realized  that  a  live  merchant  had  come 
to  town  and  patronized  him  liberally.  The  business  spread  out  and  partners 
were  taken  in.  The  firm  bought  and  sold  for  cash  only.  Long  credits  and 
bad  debts  had  no  place  in  its  system.  The  senior  member  took  a  leading  part 
in  the  Trades  League,  in  the  Grocers'  Association  and  in  every  movement  to 
improve  the  business  and  benefit  the  community.  He  was  active  in  advancing 
the  interests  of  the  trade  and  the  public.  He  wrote  and  spoke  against  civic 
abuses  and  the  exactions  of  would-be  monopolists.  He  imbued  those  about 
him  with  something  of  his  own  earnest  energy  and  was  recognized  everywhere 
as  the  brightest,  hardest  working,  most  progressive  and  public-spirited  grocer  in 
William  Penn's  great  city.  If  there  be  a  place  where  the  grocery-trade  is  on  a 
higher,  better  plane  than  in  Philadelphia  it  is  not  in  Pennsylvania,  not  in  the 
United  States  and  not  on  this  planet.  And  this  satisfactory  result  is  largely 
owing  to  the  ability  and  enthusiasm  of  the  wide-awake  merchant  who  caught 
the  inspiration  of  five-dollar  oil.  His  talents  and  his  services  are  appreciated 
by  good  citizens,  thousands  of  whom  intend  to  see  that  the  next  mayor  of 
Philadelphia  spells  his  name  Thomas  Martindale. 

William  H.  Vanderbilt  and  a  party  of  friends  visited  Buffalo  in  1880  to 
witness  the  trial-race  of  a  famous  horse.  A  special  brought  the  distinguished 
visitors,  who  were  "the  observed  of  all  observers"  as  they  appeared  in  the 


386  SKETCHES  IN   CRUDE-OIL. 

judge's  stand.  Mr.  Vanderbilt  was  in  excellent  humor,  shook  hands  pleas- 
antly with  everybody  introduced  and  enjoyed  the  sport  amazingly.  To  one  he 
remarked  just  before  the  grand  event  of  the  day  : 

"So  you  are  from  the  oil-region?" 

"Yes." 

"Let  me  tell  you  a  little  story  of  my  experience." 

"I  should  like  to  hear  it." 

"I  never  visited  your  part  of  the  country  but  once.  I  went  to  Titusville  to 
confer  with  some  gentlemen  and  stayed  there  all  night.  The  country  and  the 
people  interested  me  greatly,  but  how  much  do  you  suppose  that  visit  cost  me?" 

"I  couldn't  begin  to  guess." 

"Just  two-and-a-half-million  dollars  !" 

"  How  was  that?" 

"I  agreed  to  aid  in  building  a  railroad  projected  from  Titusville  to  Dun- 
kirk and  lost  this  amount  before  I  got  out  of  the  enterprise." 

At  this  instant  the  horse  approached  the  starting-point  and  the  conversation 
was  interrupted,  never  to  be  renewed.  The  noble  animal  beat  his  previous  rec- 
ord, amid  the  breathless  attention  of  the  occupants  of  the  stand.  Each  quarter- 
second  was  noted  carefully  by  the  holders  of  a  half-dozen  stop-watches.  When 
it  became  evident  that  the  horse  would  do  what  his  owner  predicted,  Mr.  Van- 
derbilt turned  to  William  Rockefeller  and  said:  "Take  him.  He's  cheap  at 
forty-thousand!"  Ten  minutes  later  the  New-Yorkers  left  for  Cleveland. 

Nine  years  ago  Adolph  Schreiner  died  in  a  Vienna  hospital,  destitute  and 
alone.  Yet  he  was  the  only  son  of  a  man  known  in  Galicia  as  "  the  Petroleum 
King  "  and  founder  of  the  great  industry  of  oil-refining.  The  father  shared  the 
lot  of  many  inventors  and  benefactors,  increasing  the  world's  wealth  untold 
millions  and  poverty-stricken  himself  in  his  last  days.  Schreiner  owned  a  piece 
of  ground  near  Baryslaw  from  which  he  took  a  black,  tarry  muck  the  peasants 
used  to  heal  wounds  and  grease  cart-axles.  He  kneaded  a  ball  from  the  slime, 
stuck  a  wick  into  it  and  a  red  flame  burned  until  the  substance  exhausted. 
This  was  the  first  petroleum-lamp!  Later  Schreiner  heard  of  distillation,  filled 
a  kettle  with  the  black  earth  and  placed  it  on  the  fire.  The  ooze  boiled  over 
and  exploded,  shivering  the  kettle  and  covering  the  zealous  experimenter  with 
deep  scars.  He  improved  his  apparatus,  produced  the  petroleum  of  commerce 
and  sold  bottles  of  the  fluid  to  druggists  in  1853.  He  drilled  the  first  Galician 
oil-well  in  1856  and  built  a  real  refinery,  which  fire  destroyed  in  1866.  He  re- 
built the  works  on  a  larger  scale  and  fire  blotted  them  out,  ruining  the  owner. 
Gray  hairs  and  feebleness  had  come,  he  ceased  the  struggle,  drank  to  excess 
and  died  in  misery.  His  son,  from  whom  much  was  expected,  failed  as  a  mer- 
chant and  peddled  matches  in  Vienna  from  house  to  house,  just  as  the  aged 
brother  of  Signor  Blitz,  the  world-famed  conjuror,  is  doing  in  Harris'jurg  to- 
day. Dying  at  last  in  a  public  hospital,  kindred  nor  friends  followed  the  poor 
outcast  to  a  pauper's  grave.  "  Vanity  of  vanities,  all  is  vanity  and  vexation  of 
spirit." 

Life's  page  holds  each  man's  autograph — 
Each  has  his  time  to  cry  or  laugh, 
Each  reaps  his  share  of  grain  or  chaff, 
But  all  at  last  the  dregs  must  quaff— 
The  tombstone  holds  their  epitaph. 

The  irrepressible  "Sam"  Blakely  originated  the  term  "shuffle,"  which  he 
often  practiced  in  his  dealings  in  the  oil-exchanges,  and  the  phrase,  "  Boys, 
don't  take  off  your  shirts!"  This  expression  spread  far  and  wide  and  was 


JUST  ODDS  AND  ENDS.  387 

actually  repeated  by  Osman  Pasha— if  the  cablegrams  told  the  truth— at  the 
battle  of  Plevna,  when  his  troops  wavered  an  instant  in  the  face  of  a  dreadful 
rain  of  bullets.  "Sam "  also  inaugurated  the  custom  of  drinking  Rhine-wine. 
Once  he  constituted  himself  a  committee  of  one  to  celebrate  the  Fourth  of  July 
at  Parker.  He  printed  a  great  lot  of  posters,  which  announced  a  celebration 
on  a  gorgeous  scale — horse-races,  climbing  the  greased  pole,  boat-races,  ora- 
tions, fireworks  and  other  attractions.  These  were  posted  about  the  city  and 
on  barns  and  fences  within  a  radius  of  ten  miles.  A  friend  asked  him  how  his 
celebration  was  likely  to  come  off.  "  Oh,"  he  said,  "  we're  going  to  get  all  the 
hayseeds  in  here  and  then  we'll  give  them  the  great  kibosh."  On  the  glorious 
day  "Sam  "  mounted  a  box  in  front  of  the  Columbia  hose-house  and  delivered 
an  oration  before  four-thousand  people,  who  pronounced  it  the  funniest  thing 
they  ever  heard  and  accepted  the  situation  good-naturedly.  Some  impromptu 
games  were  got  up  and  the  day  passed  off  pleasantly. 

Ruel  A.  Watson,  an  active  broker,  as  he  lay  gasping  for  breath,  raised  his 
head,  asked  an  attendant  "What's  the  market?"  sank  back  on  his  pillow  and 
expired.  "The  ruling  passion  is  strong  in  death." 

When  men  went  crazy  at  Pithole  and  outsiders  thought  the  oil-country  was 
"  flowing  with  milk  and  honey"  and  greenbacks,  a  party  of  wags  thought  to  put 
up  a  little  joke  at  the  expense  of  a  new-comer  from  Boston.  They  arranged 
with  the  landlord  for  some  coupon-bonds  to  use  in  the  dining-room  of  the  hotel 
and  to  seat  the  youth  at  their  table.  The  New  Englander  was  seated  in  due 
course.  The  guests  talked  of  oil-lands,  fabulous  strikes  and  big  fortunes  as 
ordinary  affairs.  Each  chucked  under  his  chin  a  five-twenty  government-bond 
as  a  napkin.  One  lay  in  front  of  the  Bostonian's  plate,  folded  and  creased  like 
a  genuine  linen-wiper.  Calmly  taking  the  "paper"  from  its  receptacle,  the 
chap  from  The  Hub  wiped  his  brow  and  adjusted  the  valuable  napkin  over  his 
shirt-bosom.  A  moment  later  he  beckoned  to  a  servant  and  said  :  "See  here, 
waiter,  this  napkin  is  too  small ;  bring  me  a  dish  of  soup  and  a  '  ten-forty.'  " 
The  jokers  could  not  stand  this.  A  laugh  went  around  the  festive  board  that 
could  have  been  heard  at  the  Twin  Wells  and  the  matter  was  explained  to  the 
bean-eater.  He  was  put  on  the  trail  of  "  a  soft  snap ' '  and  went  home  in  a 
month  with  ten-thousand  dollars.  "Bring  me  a  ten-forty"  circulated  fora 
twelve-month  in  cigar-shops  and  bar-rooms. 

A  jovial  Parker  merchant  purchased  a  new  hat,  which  he  invited  a  half- 
dozen  jolly  brokers  to  visit  a  saloon  to  help  him  fit  properly.  The  hat  was 
handed  around  for  all  to  admire.  One  of  the  meanest  jokers  that  never  held 
a  public-office,  while  the  boys  were  looking  at  the  ceiling  through  tilted  beer- 
glasses,  slipped  a  thin  slice  of  Limburger  cheese  under  the  sweat-band  of  the 
tile.  The  merchant  returned  to  his  store,  laid  his  hat  on  the  desk  in  the  office 
and  began  to  answer  letters.  He  thought  he  detected  a  smell.  His  partner 
asked  if  he  felt  quite  well  and  a  clerk  hinted  somebody's  feet  needed  washing. 
The  hat-owner  said  he  would  go  home  and  rest.  On  the  street  people  held 
their  noses  as  he  drew  near  and  a  friend  remarked  that  the  air  was  full  of  mi- 
asma. At  the  door  his  wife  inquired  what  was  wrong.  He  told  her  he  feared 
mortification  had  set  in  and  she  agreed  with  him.  She  remarked  that  if  any 
disease  that  smelled  like  that  had  got  hold  of  him  he  would  be  a  burden  to 
himself  if  he  lived  very  long.  She  got  his  clothes  off,  soaked  his  feet  in  mus- 
tard-water and  he  slept.  The  children  would  come  in  and  get  a  smell  of  the 
hat,  look  at  each  other  with  reproachful  glances  and  go  out  and  play.  The 
man  dreamed  a  small-pox  flag  was  hung  in  front  of  his  house  and  that  he  was 


388  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

riding  in  a  butcher-wagon  to  the  pest-house.  The  wife  sent  for  a  doctor.  The 
doctor  picked  up  the  patient's  hat,  tried  it  on  and  got  a  whiff.  He  said  the  hat 
was  picked  before  it  was  ripe.  Then  the  doctor  and  wife  held  a  post-mortem 
examination  of  the  hat  and  found  the  Limburger.  Few  and  short  were  the 
prayers  they  said.  They  awoke  the  patient  and  the  doctor  asked  him  if  his 
worldly  affairs  were  in  a  satisfactory  condition.  He  gasped  and  said  they  were. 
The  doctor  asked  him  if  he  had  made  his  will.  He  said  that  he  had  not,  but 
that  he  wanted  a  lawyer  at  once.  The  doctor  asked  him  if  he  felt  as  though 
he  was  ready  to  shuffle  off.  The  man  said  he  had  always  tried  to  lead  a  differ- 
ent life  and  to  do  as  he  would  be  done  by,  but  that  he  might  have  made  a 
mis-deal  in  some  way  and  he  would  like  to  have  a  minister  sent  for  to  take  an 
account  of  stock.  The.n  the  doctor  brought  to  the  bedside  the  hat,  opened  up 
the  sweat-leather  and  showed  the  dying  man  what  it  was  that  smelled  so.  The 
patient  pinched  himself  to  see  if  he  was  alive,  jumped  out  of  bed,  called  for 
his  revolver  and  the  doctor  couldn't  keep  up  with  him  on  his  way  to  the  sa- 
loon to  bribe  the  bar-tender  to  tell  what  son  of  a  pelican  had  planted  the  odor- 
iferous cheese  in  his  hat-lining.  The  story  went  the  giddy  rounds  and  was 
trimmed  to  suit  various  localities,  but  Col.  Robert  B.  Allen,  "Jimmy"  Lowe 
and  "Sam"  Blakely  were  the  only  men  who  saw  the  first  perpetrator  of  the 
Limburger  act  perform  the  deed. 

In  1863-4  J-  B.  Allen,  of  Michigan,  a  first-class  scholar  and  chemist,  had 
charge  of  the  prescription-department  in  Dr.  R.  Colbert  and  Dr.  Egbert's 
drug-store.  He  could  read  Greek  as  readily  as  English,  declaim  in  Latin  by 
the  hour,  quote  from  any  of  the  classics  and  speak  three  or  four  modern  lan- 
guages. To  raise  money  to  pay  off  a  mortgage  on  his  father's  farm  he  walked 
across  the  Allegheny  on  a  'wire  thirty  feet  above  the  water.  He  carried  a  large 
flag,  attached  to  a  frame  mounted  on  a  pulley-wheel,  which  he  shoved  with 
one  hand,  holding  a  balance-pole  in  the  other.  It  was  a  feat  Blondin  could  not 
excel.  Allen  was  decidedly  eccentric  and  the  hero  of  unnumbered  stories. 
Once  a  mud-bespattered  horseman  rushed  into  the  store  with  a  prescription 
that  called  for  a  deadly  poison.  The  horseman  was  informed  it  was  not  safe 
to  fill  it,  but  he  insisted  upon  having  it,  saying  it  bore  a  prominent  doctor's 
signature  and  there  could  be  no  mistake.  Allen  filled  it  and  wrote  on  the 
label :  ' '  Caution— If  any  damphool  takes  this  prescription  it  will  kill  him  as 
dead  as  the  devil !" 

Lillian  Edgarton,  the  plump  and  talented  platform-speaker,  was  billed  to 
appear  at  Franklin.  She  traveled  from  Pittsburg  by  rail.  A  Parker  broker 
was  a  passenger  on  the  train  and  wired  to  the  oil-exchange  that  Josie  Mansfield 
was  on  board.  The  news  flew  and  five-hundred  men  stood  on  the  platform 
when  the  train  arrived.  The  broker  jumped  off  and  said  the  lady  had  a  seat 
near  the  center  of  the  coach  he  had  just  left.  The  boys  climbed  on  the  car- 
platform,  opened  the  door  and  marched  in  single  file  along  the  aisle  to  get 
a  look  at  "Josie."  The  conductor  tore  his  hair  in  anguish  that  the  train 
would  not  carry  such  a  crowd  as  struggled  to  get  on,  but  he  was  dumbfounded 
when  the  long  procession  began  to  get  oft".  The  sell  was  not  discovered  until 
next  morning,  by  which  time  the  author  of  the  joke  had  started  on  his  sum- 
mer-vacation and  could  not  be  reached  by  the  vigilance-committee. 

Hon.  Reuben  Carroll,  a  pioneer  operator,  was  born  in  Mercer  county  in 
1823,  went  to  Ohio  to  complete  his  education,  settled  in  the  Buckeye  State  and 
was  a  member  of  the  Legislature  when  developments  began  on  Oil  Creek. 
Solicited  by  friends  to  join  them  in  an  investment  that  proved  fortunate,  he  re- 


JUST  ODDS  AND  ENDS.  389 

moved  to  Titusville  and  cast  his  lot  with  the  producers.  He  operated  exten- 
sively in  the  northern  fields,  residing  at  Richburg  during  the  Allegany  excite- 
ment. He  took  an  active  interest  in  public  atiairs  and  contributed  stirring 
articles  on  politics,  finance  and  good  government  to  leading  journals.  He  op- 
posed Wall-street  domination  and  vigorously 
upheld  the  rights  of  the  masses.  Upon  the  de- 
cline of  Richburg  he  located  at  Lily  Dale,  New 
York,  where  his  active  mind  finds  congenial 
exercise  maintaining  the  cause  of  the  people 
against  encroachments  of  the  money-power. 
Mr.  Carroll,  as  a  representative  producer,  was 
asked  to  become  a  member  of  the  South  Im- 
provement Company  in  1872.  The  offer  aroused 
his  inflexible  sense  of  justice  and  was  indignantly 
spurned.  With  schemes  of  spoliation  a  man  of 
his  character  and  temperament  could  have  no 
sympathy.  He  knew  the  sturdy  quality  and 
large-heartedness  of  the  Oil-Creek  operators 
and  did  not  propose  to  assist  in  their  destruc- 
tion. He  resolutely  resisted  the  torpedo  mo- 
nopoly and  the  bogus  claims  of  the  fraudulent 

inventors  who  sought  to  levy  tribute  from  the  oil-interests.  At  seventy-three 
Mr.  Carroll  is  vigorous  and  well-preserved,  ready  to  combat  error  and  cham- 
pion truth  with  tongue  and  pen.  An  intelligent  student  of  the  past  and  of  cur- 
rent events,  a  close  observer  of  the  signs  of  the  times  and  a  keen  reasoner, 
Reuben  Carroll  is  a  fine  example  of  the  men  who  are  mainly  responsible  for  the 
birth  and  growth  of  the  petroleum-development. 

There  is  much  uncertainty  as  to  the  youngest  soldier  in  the  civil-war,  the 

oldest  Mason,  the  man  who  first  nominated  McKinley  for  President  and  who 

struck  Billie  Patterson,  but  none  as  to  the  youngest  dealer  in  oil-well  supplies  in 

the  oil  region.   This  distinction  belongs  to  Ralph 

W.  Carroll,  a  native  of  Youngstown,  Ohio,  and 

^jy»^  son  of  Hon.  Reuben  Carroll.     Born  in  1860,  at 

^^^         "••          eighteen  he  was  at  the  head  of  a  large  business 
,A  at  Rock   City,  in  the   Four-Mile   District,  five 

•B      miles  south-west  of  Olean.     His  three  brothers 
•Eft     were  associated  with  him  under  the  firm  name 
^.JL  i     of  Carroll  Brothers.     The  firm  was  the  first  to 

I     open  a  supply-store  at  Richburg,  with  a  branch 
'•;v'^.  f     at  Allentown,  four  miles  east,  and  an  est.iblish- 

flpk,  ment  later  at  Cherry  Grove.     In  1883  Ralph 

WJf        W.  succeeded  the  firm,  his  brothers  retiring,  and 
|^V  ^^         located  at  Bradford.     He  carried  on  a  large 

M^    ^^^7  trade  as  oil-region  agent  of  the  American  Tube 

and  Iron  Company,  the  Ball  Engine  Company 
and  other  manufacturers  of  all  goods  for  oil- 
wells  and  gas-wells.  At  Bradford  he  issued  the 

first  net  price-list  of  oil-well  supplies  ever  published.  The  innovation  pleased 
the  producers,  whose  restless  energy  did  not  relish  sitting  down  to  figure  out 
discounts.  Mr.  Carroll  was  the  first  oil-country  representative  to  open  a  sup- 
ply-store at  Lima.  In  1886,  the  scene  of  activity  having  shifted  to  Butler,  Alle- 


390 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


gheny  and  Washington  counties  and  West  Virginia,  he  opened  offices  and  ware- 
houses at  Pittsburg.  The  pipe-business  had  attained  such  proportions  as  to  de- 
mand his  entire  efforts  until  1894,  when  he  removed  to  New  York  to  engage  in 
placing  special  investments.  The  young  merchant  was  secretary  of  the  Pro- 
ducers' Protective  Association,  organized  at  Richburg  in  1881,  and  a  member 
of  the  executive  committee  that  conducted  the  fight  against  the  Roberts  Tor- 
pedo Company.  Hon.  David  Kirk,  Asher  W.  Milner,  J.  E.  Dusenbury  and 
"  Farmer"  Dean  were  his  four  associates  on  this  important  committee,  which 
gained  the  victories  that  resulted  in  a  final  compromise  and  great  reduction  in 
the  price  of  torpedoes.  Roscoe  Conkling,  for  the  Roberts  side,  and  General 
Butler,  for  the  Producers'  Association,  measured  swords  in  this  legal  warfare. 
Retaining  the  excellent  traits  that  made  him  popular  and  influential  at  Rich- 
burg,  Bradford  and  Pittsburg,  Mr.  Carroll  has  a  warm  welcome  for  his  oil-region 
friends,  a  class  of  men  the  like  of  whom  for  geniality,  sociability,  liberality  and 
enterprise  the  world  can  never  duplicate. 

Michael  Geary,  whose  death  last  year  was  a  severe  blow  to  Oil  City,  for- 
cibly illustrated  what  energy  and  industry  may  accomplish.  He  was  a  first- 
class  boiler-maker  and  machinist,  self-reliant,  stout-hearted  and  strong  men- 
tally and  physically.  In  1876  he  started  the  Oil-City  Boiler- Works  in  a  small 
building,  Daniel  O'Day  and  B.  W.  Vandergrift  furnishing  the  money  and  tak- 
ing an  interest  in  the  business.  O'Day  and  Geary  became  sole  owners  in  1882. 
The  plant  was  enlarged,  the  tube-mills  were  added,  acres  of  buildings  dotted 
the  flats  and  a  thousand  men  were  employed.  Engines,  tanks,  stills,  tubing, 
casing  and  boilers  of  every  description  were  manufactured.  The  machinery 
comprised  the  latest  and  fullest  equipment.  The  business  grew  amazingly. 
Joseph  Seep  was  admitted  to  partnership  and  branch-offices  were  established 
in  New  York,  Chicago,  Pittsburg  and  at  various  points  in  the  oil-producing 
states.  The  firm  led  the  world  as  tank-builders,  actually  constructing  one- 
third  the  total  iron-tankage  in  the  United  States.  Mr.  Geary  bought  and  re- 
modeled the  Arlington  Hotel,  fostered  local  enterprises  and  was  a  most  pro- 
gressive citizen.  He  died  in  the  vigor  of  manhood.  The  splendid  industries  lie 
reared  and  the  high  place  he  held  in  public  esteem  are  his  enduring  monument. 

"The  Fredonia  Gas-Light  and  Water-Works  Company,"  which  obtained  a 
special  charter  in  1856,  was  undoubtedly  the  first  natural-gas  company  in  the 
world.  Its  object  was,  "by  boring  down  through  the  slate-rock  and  sinking 
wells  to  a  sufficient  depth  to  penetrate  the  manufactories  of  nature,  and  thus 
collect  from  her  laboratories  the  natural-gas  and  purify  it,  to  furnish  the  citizens 
with  good  cheap  light."  The  tiny  stream  of  gas  first  utilized  at  the  mill  yielded 
its  mite  forty  years.  When  Lafayette  remained  a  night  at  Fredonia  in  1824, 
on  his  triumphal  visit  to  the  United  States,  "the  village-inn  was  lighted  with 
gas  that  came  from  the  ground."  The  illustrious  Frenchman  saw  nothing  in 
his  travels  that  interested  and  delighted  him  more  than  this  novel  illumination. 

Col.  J.  A.  Barrett,  for  many  years  a  citizen  of  Illinois  and  law-partner  of 
Abraham  Lincoln,  in  1886  removed  to  a  tract  of  five-thousand  acres  on  Tug 
Fork,  near  the  quiet  hamlet  of  Warfield.  Gas  issued  from  the  soil  and  tradi- 
tion says  George  Washington  fired  the  subtle  vapor  at  Burning  Spring  while 
surveying  in  West  Virginia  before  the  Revolution.  Captain  A.  Allen,  who 
pioneered  the  oil-business  on  Little  Kanawha,  leased  the  tract  from  Col.  Bar- 
rett and  struck  a  vast  reservoir  of  gas  at  two-thousand  feet. 

A  Bradford  youth,  whose  doting  mother  presented  him  with  eighteen- 
thousand  dollars  on  his  twenty-first  birthday,  to  begin  business  for  himself, 


JUST  ODDS  AND   ENDS.  39t 

went  to  New  York  and  returned  in  six  weeks  without  a  cent.  He  didn't  gam- 
ble in  stocks,  but  he  saw  New  York  by  gaslight  and  made  everything  hot  for 
the  Gotham  bloods. 

The  Anchor  Oil-Company's  No.  i,  the  first  well  finished  near  "646,"  in 
Warren  county,  flowed  two-thousand  barrels  a  day  on  the  ground  until  tanks 
could  be  provided.  It  burned  when  flowing  a  thousand  barrels  and  for  ten 
days  could  not  be  extinguished.  One  man  wanted  to  steam  it  to  death,  another 
to  drown  it,  another  to  squeeze  its  life  out,  another  to  smother  it  with  straw, 
another  to  dig  a  hole  and  cut  off  the  flow,  another  to  roll  a  big  log  over  it, 
another  to  blow  out  its  brains  with  dynamite,  another  to  blind  it  with  carbolic 
acid,  another  to  throw  up  earth-works  and  so  on  until  the  pestered  owners 
wished  five-hundred  cranks  were  in  the  asylum  at  North  Warren.  Pipes  were 
finally  attached  in  such  a  way  as  to  draw  off  the  oil  and  the  flame  died  out. 

Col.  Drake  used  the  first  driving-pipe  to  reach  the  bed-rock. 

The  first  tubing  used  in  oil-wells  was  manufactured  at  Pittsburg  and  was 
the  same  as  used  in  salt-wells  at  Tarentum.  Some  of  it  was  made  with  brass 
screw-joints,  eight  threads  to  the  inch,  and  soldered  on  the  pipe. 

William  A.  Smith,  who  drilled  the  Drake  well,  made  the  first  rimmer. 
While  enlarging  a  well  with  a  bit  the  point  broke  off,  after  which  greater  prog- 
ress was  made.  This  accident  suggested  the  rimmer. 

Drilling  with  a  cable  attached  to  the  tools  was  invented  by  the  Chinese 
many  years  since,  but  was  introduced  into  the  oil-country  by  the  Tarentum 
drillers.  Pole-tools  for  drilling  were  little  used  in  the  oil-regions,  except  to  fish 
•out  lost  tools. 

Early  well-owners  found  the  tools  and  fuel,  paid  all  expenses  but  labor  and 
paid  three-dollars-and-fifty-cents  per  foot  to  the  contractor,  yet  so  many  con- 
tractors failed  that  a  lien-law  was  passed.  George  Koch,  in  November  of  1873, 
took  out  a  patent  on  fluted  drills,  which  did  away  with  the  rimmer,  reduced  the 
time  of  drilling  a  well  from  sixty  days  to  twenty  and  reduced  the  price  from 
three  dollars  per  foot  to  fifty  cents 

Sam  Taft  was  the  first  to  use  a  line  to  control  the  engine  from  the  derrick, 
at  a  well  near  McClintockville,  in  1867.  Henry  Webber  was  the  first  to  regu- 
late the  motion  of  the  engine  from  the  derrick.  He  drilled  a  well  near  Smoky 
City,  on  the  Porter  farm,  in  1863,  with  a  rod  from  the  derrick  to  the  throttle- 
valve.  He  also  dressed  the  tools,  with  the  forge  in  the  derrick,  perhaps  the 
first  time  this  was  done.  He  drilled  this  well  six-hundred  feet  with  no  help. 
Near  this  well  was  the  first  plank-derrick  in  the  oil-country. 

The  first  derricks  were  of  poles,  twelve  feet  base  and  twenty-eight  to  thirty 
feet  high.  The  ladder  was  made  by  putting  pins  through  a  corner  of  a  leg  of 
the  derrick.  The  Samson-post  was  mortised  in  the  ground.  The  band-wheel 
was  hung  in  a  frame  like  a  grindstone.  A  single  bull-wheel,  made  out  of  about 
a  thousand  feet  of  lumber,  placed  on  the  side  of  the  derrick  next  to  the  band- 
wheel,  with  a  rope  or  old  rubber-belt  for  a  brake,  was  used.  When  the  tools 
were  let  down  the  former  would  burn  and  smoke,  the  latter  would  smell  like 
ancient  codfish. 

"Ivry  gintleman  will  soon  go  horseback  on  his  own  taykittle"  was  the 
inspired  exclamation  of  an  Irish  baronet  upon  beholding  the  initial  trip  of  the 
first  locomotive.  Vast  improvements  in  the  application  of  power  have  been 
effected  since  Stephenson's  grand  triumph,  nowhere  more  satisfactorily  than  in 
the  oil-regions.  Producers  who  remember  the  primitive  methods  in  vogue 
-along  Oil  Creek  can  best  appreciate  the  wonderful  progress  made  during  three 
26 


392  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE- OIL. 

decades.  The  tedious  process  of  drilling  wet-holes  with  light  tools  has  gone 
where  the  woodbine  twineth.  Casing  has  retired  the  seed-bag  permanently  and 
from  the  polish-rod  to  the  working-barrel  not  the  smallest  detail  remains  unim- 
proved. Having  a  portable  engine  and  boiler  at  each  well  has  given  place  to 
the  cheaper  plan  of  coupling  a  host  of  wells  together,  two  men  thus  doing  the 
work  that  once  required  twenty  or  thirty.  Pipe-lines  have  superseded  greasy 
barrels  and  swearing  teamsters  and  even  tank-cars  are  following  the  flat-boats 
of  pioneer  times  to  oblivion.  In  short,  labor-saving  systems  have  revolutionized 
the  business  so  completely  that  the  fathers  of  the  early  styles  would  utterly  fail 
to  recognize  their  offspring  in  the  petroleum-development  as  conducted  now- 
a-days. 

Sad  accidents  happened  before  drillers  learned  how  to  manage  a  flowing 
oil-well  with  casing  in  it.  At  Frank  Fertig's  well,  Antwerp,  a  man  was  burned 
to  death.  The  burning  of  the  Shoup  &  Vensel  well  at  Turkey  City  cost  three 
lives  and  led  to  an  indignation-meeting  at  St.  Petersburg  to  protest  against 
casing.  Danger  from  its  use  was  soon  removed  by  Victor  Gretter's  invention 
of  the  oil-saver.  Gretter,  a  small,  dark-haired,  dark-eyed  man,  lived  at  St. 
Petersburg.  He  was  an  inventive  genius  and  a  joker  of  the  first  water.  His 
oil-saver  doubtless  saved  many  lives,  by  preventing  gas  and  oil  from  escaping 
when  a  vein  was  tapped  and  coming  in  contact  with  the  tool  dresser's  fire 
in  the  derrick. 

The  first  three-and-a-quarter  casing  was  used  on  the  Tarr  farm,  in  March 
of  1865.  Every  well  on  the  farm  was  flooded  with  water,  not  a  barrel  of  oil  was 
produced  and  small  casing  was  introduced.  The  production  rose  to  a  thousand 
barrels  per  day,  which  insured  the  success  of  the  method.  Cleaning  out  could 
be  done  very  rapidly,  which  gave  rise  to  the  idea  of  drilling  through  casing. 
This  was  first  done  on  Benninghoff  Run,  in  the  summer  of  1868.  One  of  the 
greatest  inventions  connected  with  the  oil  business,  casing  was  not  patented. 

Before  casing  was  introduced  it  was  often  difficult  to  tell  if  oil  was  found. 
Oilmen  would  examine  the  sand,  look  for  "soot"  on  the  sand-pumpings  and 
place  a  lighted  match  to  the  sand-pump  immediately  after  it  was  drawn  from 
the  well,  as  a  test  for  gas.  If  the  driller  was  sure  the  drill  dropped  two  or  three 
feet,  with  "soot"  on  the  sand-pumpings,  the  show  was  considered  worth  test- 
ing. A  seed-bag  was  put  on  the  tubing  and  the  well  was  allowed  to  stand  a  day 
or  two  to  let  the  seed  swell.  To  exhaust  the  water  sometimes  required  weeks, 
but  when  all  hope  of  a  producer  was  lost  and  the  last  shovel  of  coal  was  in 
the  boiler  the  oil  might  come.  There  seemed  to  be  a  virtue  in  that  last  shovel 
of  coal.  The  shoemaker  who  could  make  a  good  seed-bag  was  a  big  man. 
The  man  who  tied  on  the  seed-bag  for  a  well  that  proved  a  good  producer  was 
in  demand.  If,  after  oil  showed  itself,  flax-seed  was  seen  coming  from  the  pipe 
the  well-owner's  heart  could  be  found  in  his  boots.  The  bag  was  burst,  the 
water  let  in  and  the  operator's  hopes  let  out. 

Mud-veins  in  the  third  sand  on  Oil  Creek  and  at  Pithole  would  often  stick 
the  tools  effectually.  On  Bull  Run  three  wells  in  one  derrick  were  abandoned 
with  tools  stuck  in  the  third  sand.  The  theory  was  that  the  mud-vein  was  a 
stratum  of  slate  in  the  sand,  which  became  softened  and  ran  into  the  well  when 
water  came  in  contact  with  it.  Casing  has  robbed  it  of  its  terrors. 

All  kinds  of  engines,  from  one  to  fifty  horse-power,  were  used  on  Oil  Creek 
in  the  sixties.  The  old  "Fabers,"  with  direct  attachment,  will  recall  many  a 
broad  grin.  The  boys  called  them  "Long  Johns."  The  Wallace-engine  had 
hemp-packing  on  the  piston,  and  the  inside  of  the  cylinder,  rough  as  a  rasp, 


JUST  ODDS  AND  ENDS.  393 

soon  used  it  up  and  leaked  steam  like  a  sieve.  The  Washington-engine  was 
the  first  to  come  into  general  use.  C.  M.  Farrar,  of  Farrar  &  Trefts,  whose 
boilers  and  engines  have  stood  every  test  demanded  by  improvements  in  drill- 
ing, made  the  drawing  for  the  first  locomotive-pattern  boiler  on  a  drilling  well — 
a  wonderful  stride  in  advance  of  the  old-time  boiler.  Trefts  made  the  cast- 
ings for  the  engine  that  pumped  the  Drake  well  and  was  the  first  man,  in  com- 
pany with  J.  Willard,  to  use  ropes  on  Oil  Creek  in  drilling.  This  was  on  the 
Foster  farm,  near  the  world-famed  Empire  well,  in  1860.  Willard  made  the 
second  set  of  jars  on  the  creek.  Senator  W.  S.  McMullan  was  a  stalwart  black- 
smith, who  made  drilling-tools  noted  for  their  enduring  quality. 

The  Beardsleys,  Fishers,  Dollophs  and  Fosters  were  the  first  inhabitants  in 
the  wilds  of  Northern  McKean.  Henry  Bradford  Dolloph,  whose  house  above 
Sawyer  City  was  shattered  by  a  glycerine  explosion,  was  the  first  white  child 
who  saw  daylight  and  made  infantile  music  in  the  Tuna  Valley.  One  of  the  first 
two  houses  where  Bradford  stands  was  occupied  by  the  Hart  family,  parents  and 
twelve  children.  When  the  De  Golias  settled  up  the  East  Branch  a  road  had 
to  be  cut  through  the  forest  from  Alton.  Hon.  Lewis  Emery's  No.  i,  on  the 
Tibbets  farm,  the  first  good  well  up  the  Branch,  produced  oil  that  paid  two  or 
three  times  the  cost  of  the  entire  property. 

By  the  side  of  the  romance,  the  pathos,  the  tragedy  and  the  startling  inci- 
dents of  the  oil-regions  thirty  years  ago  the  gold-excitements  of  California  and 
Australia  and  the  diamond-fever  of  South  Africa  are  tame  and  vapid.  Prior 
to  the  oil-development  settlers  in  the  back  townships  lived  very  sparingly. 
Children  grew  up  simple-minded  and  untutored.  The  sale  of  a  pig  or  a  calf 
or  a  turkey  was  an  event  looked  forward  to  for  months.  Petroleum  made  not 
a  few  of  these  rustics  wealthy.  Families  that  had  never  seen  ten  dollars  sud- 
denly owned  hundreds-of-thousands.  Lawless,  reckless,  wicked  communities 
sprang  up.  The  close  of  the  war  flooded  the  region  with  paper-currency  and 
bold  adventurers.  Leadville  or  Cheyenne  at  its  zenith  was  a  camp-meeting 
compared  with  Pithole,  Petroleum  Centre  or  Babylon.  Men  and  women  of 
every  degree  of  decency  and  degradation  huddled  as  closely  as  the  pig-tailed 
Celestials  in  Chinatown.  Millions  of  dollars  were  lost  in  bogus  stock-com- 
panies. American  history  records  no  other  such  era  of  riotous  extravagance. ' 
The  millionaire  and  the  beggar  of  to-day  might  change  places  to-morrow. 
Blind  chance  and  consummate  rascality  were  equally  potent.  Of  these  centers 
of  sin  and  speculation,  strange  transformations  and  wild  excesses,  scarcely  a 
trace  remains.  Where  hosts  of  fortune-seekers  and  devotees  of  pleasure  strove 
and  struggled  nothing  is  to  be  seen  save  the  bare  landscape,  a  growth  of  under- 
brush or  a  grassy  field.  Sodom  was  not  blotted  out  more  completely  than  Pit- 
hole,  the  type  of  many  oil-towns  that  have  been  utterly  exterminated. 

The  first  funeral  at  Fagundas  was  a  novelty.  A  soap-peddler,  stopping  at 
the  Rooling  House  one  night,  died  of  delirium-tremens.  He  was  put  into  a 
rough  coffin  and  a  small  party  set  off  to  inter  the  corpse.  Somebody  thought 
it  mean  to  bury  a  fellow-creature  without  some  signs  of  respect.  The  party 
returned  to  the  hotel  with  the  body,  a  large  crowd  assembled  in  the  evening, 
flowers  decorated  the  casket,  services  were  conducted  and  at  dead  of  night 
two-hundred  oil  men  followed  the  friendless  stranger  to  his  grave. 

James  Bennett,  aged  nineteen,  worked  at  a  well  near  Petroleum  Centre. 
Tubing  was  to  be  drawn  one  morning  and  Bennett  wished  to  engage  a  substi- 
tute, because  impressed  with  a  premonition  of  some  misfortune,  should  he 
leave  home.  His  mother,  long  an  invalid,  tried  to  quiet  his  fears  and  he  went 


394  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE   OIL. 

to  work  reluctantly.  In  a  few  moments  the  block  and  tackle  fell  and  killed 
Bennett,  who  was  on  the  derrick-floor.  The  shock  of  her  son's  death  proved 
fatal  to  the  sorrowing  mother. 

Col.  W.  H.  Kinter,  of  Oil  City,  a  man  of  kindliest  impulses,  genial  and 
whole-souled,  greeting  a  neighbor  one  Sunday  evening,  remarked  :  ' '  Good- 
night, old  boy — no,  make  it  good-bye  ;  we  may  never  meet  again  !"  He  re- 
tired in  excellent  health  and  spirits.  Next  morning,  feeling  drowsy,  he  asked 
his  wife — a  daughter  of  Hamilton  McClintock — to  bring  him  a  cup  of  tea.  She 
returned  in  a  short  time  to  find  her  husband  asleep  in  death.  John  Vanausdall, 
partner  of  William  Phillips  in  the  biggest  well  on  Oil  Creek,  left  his  home  at 
Oil  City  in  the  morning,  took  ill  at  Petrolia  and  telegraphed  for  his  wife.  She 
hurried  on  the  first  train  and  reached  his  bedside  just  as  he  drew  his  last  breath. 

The  funeral  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  William  B.  Magee,  on  May  ninth,  1891,  was 
one  of  the  largest  ever  witnessed  in  Oil  City.  Mrs.  Magee,  aged  eighty-three, 
died  on  May  sixth,  from  an  attack  of  grip.  Mr.  Magee,  four  years  older,  died 
on  May  seventh,  eighteen  hours  after  his  wife.  This  singular  coincidence,  the 
happy  ending  of  a  long  pilgrimage,  was  not  anticipated.  The  venerable  pair 
had  "  clamb  the  hill  thegither  "  sixty-one  years,  thirty  of  them  in  Oil  City.  Mr. 
Magee  was  ill  only  two  days.  Both  retained  consciousness  to  the  last,  passed 
away  peacefully  and  were  laid  side  by  side  in  Grove-Hill  cemetery. 

Judge  Keating,  who  built  the  Keating  furnace  in  Clarion  county  and  ac- 
quired a  fortune  in  iron  and  oil,  died  in  December  of  1880.  He  was  buried  at 
Emlenton,  hundreds  of  old  friends  attending  the  funeral.  As  the  service  at  the 
church  was  beginning  John  Middleton,  aged  eighty-one,  gasped  for  breath  and 
died  in  the  pew.  While  descending  the  hill  from  the  cemetery,  after  the  burial, 
Wm.  McCullough,  of  Pittsburg,  aged  seventy-two  years,  uncle  of  Mr.  Keating, 
fell  and  fractured  his  left  arm. 

Joseph  Wood,  proprietor  of  the  St.  James  Hotel  at  Paterson,  N.  J.,  died  on 
May  thirteenth,  1896.  He  was  a  wit  and  story-teller  of  the  best  kind,  a  gallant 
fighter  for  the  Union  and  for  a  year  lived  at  Pithole.  A  fortune  made  by  oper- 
ating and  speculation  he  lost  by  fire  in  a  year.  He  conducted  hotels  at  Hot 
Springs,  Washington,  Chicago  and  Milwaukee  and  was  one  of  the  famous 
Bonifaces  of  the  United  States.  On  his  business-cards  he  printed  these  "  relig- 
ious beliefs  :" 

"  Do  not  keep  the  alabaster-boxes  of  your  love  and  tenderness  sealed  up  until  your  friends 
are  dead.  Fill  their  lives  with  sweetness.  Speak  approving,  cheering  words  while  their  ea'S 
can  hear  them  and  while  their  hearts  can  be  thrilled  and  made  happier  by  them.  The  kind 
things  you  mean  to  say  when  they  are  gone  say  before  they  go.  The  flowets  you  mean  to  send 
to  their  coffins  send  to  brighten  and  sweeten  their  homes  before  they  leave  them.  If  my  friends 
have  alabaster-boxes  laid  away,  full  of  fragrant  perfumes  of  sympathy  and  affection,  which  they 
intend  to  break  over  my  dead  body,  I  would  rather  they  would  bring  them  out  in  my  weaty  and 
troubled  hours  and  open  them,  that  I  may  be  refreshed  and  cheered  by  them  while  I  need  them. 
I  would  rather  have  a  plain  coffin  without  a  flower,  a  funeral  without  a  eulogy  than  a  life  with- 
out the  sweetness  of  love  and  sympathy.  Let  us  learn  to  anoint  our  frieiids  beforehand  for  their 
burial.  Post-mortem  kindness  does  not  cheer  the  burdened  spirit.  Flowers  on  the  coffin  cast  no 
fragrance  backward  over  the  weary  way." 

Let  down  the  bars  and  enter  the  field  that  was  once  the  seething,  boiling 
caldron  called  Pithole.  A  poplar-tree  thirty  feet  high  grows  in  the  cellar  of 
the  National  Hotel.  Stones  and  underbrush  cover  the  site  of  the  Metropolitan 
Theater  and  Murphy's  Varieties.  This  bit  of  sunken  ground,  clogged  with 
weeds  and  brambles,  marks  the  Chase  House.  Here  was  Main  street,  where 
millions  of  dollars  changed  hands  daily.  For  years  the  Presbyterian  church 
stood  forsaken,  the  bell  in  the  tower  silent,  the  pews  untouched  and  the  pulpit- 


JUST  ODDS  AND  ENDS. 


395 


Bible  lying  on  the  preacher's  desk.  John  McPherson's  store  and  Dr.  Christie's 
house  were  about  the  last  buildings  in  the  place.  Not  a  human-being  now  lives 
on  the  spot.  All  the  old-timers  moved  away.  All?  No,  a  score  or  two  quietly 
sleep  among  the  bushes  and  briars  that  run  riot  over  the  little  graveyard  in 
which  they  were  laid  when  the  dead  city  was  in  the  throes  of  a  tremendous 
excitement. 

The  rate  at  which  towns  rose  was  surely  most  terrific, 
Nothing  to  rival  it  from  Maine  to  the  Pacific  ; 
The  rate  at  which  they  fell  has  never  had  an  equal- 
Woods,  city,  ruin'd  waste— the  story  and  the  sequel. 

The  first  "hotel  "  at  Pithole — a  balloon-frame  rushed  up  in  a  day — bore  the 
pretentious  title  of  Astor  House.  Before  its  erection  pilgrims  to  the  coming 
city  took  their  chance  of  meals  at  the  Holmden  farm-house.  As  a  guest  wittily 
remarked:  "Itwastable  d'hote  for  men  and  also  table  d'oat  for  horses."  The 
viands  were  all  heaped  upon  large  dishes  and  everybody  helped  himself.  The 
Morey-Farm  Hotel,  just  above  Pithole,  charged  twenty-one  dollars  a  week  for 
board,  had  gas-light,  steam-heat,  telegraph-office,  barber-shop,  colored  waiters 
and  "spring-mattresses."  Its  cooking  rivalled  the  best  in  the  large  cities.  At 

Wiggins's  Hotel,  a 
three-story  board- 
ing-house in  the 
Tidioute  field,  two- 
hundred  men  would 
often  wait  their  turn 
to  get  dinner.  This 
was  a  common  ex- 
perience in  the  fron- 
tier towns,  to  which 
throngs  hastened 
before  houses  could 
be  erected  for  their 
accommod  ation. 
E.  H.  Crittenden's 
hotel  at  Titusville 

was  the  finest  Oildom  boasted  in  the  sixties.  Book  &  Frisbee's  was  notable  at 
the  height  of  the  Parker  development.  A  dollar  for  a  meal  or  a  bed,  four  dol- 
lars a  day  or  twenty-eight  dollars  a  week,  be  the  stay  long  or  short,  was  the 
invariable  rate.  Peter  Christie's  Central  Hotel,  at  Petrolia,  was  immensely 
popular  and  a  regular  gold-mine  for  the  owner.  Oil  City's  Petroleum  House 
was  a  model  hostelry,  under  "  Charley"  Staats  and  "Jim  "  White.  The  Jones 
House  cleared  Jones  forty-thousand  dollars  in  nine  months.  Its  first  guest  was 
a  Mr.  Seymour,  who  spent  one  year  collecting  data  for  a  statistical  work  on 
petroleum.  His  manuscripts  perished  in  the  flood  of  1865.  The  last  glimpse 
my  eyes  beheld  of  Jones  was  at  Tarport,  where  he  was  driving  a  dray.  Brad- 
ford's Riddell  House  and  St.  James  Hotel  both  sized  up  to  the  most  exacting 
requirements.  Good  hotels  and  good  restaurants  were  seldom  far  behind  the 
triumphant  march  of  the  pioneers  whose  successes  established  oil-towns.  ' 

W.  J.  Bostford,  who  died  at  Jamestown  in  November  of  1895,  operated  at 
Pithole  in  i  s  palmy  days.  Business  was  done  on  a  cash  basis  and  oil-property 
was  paid  for  in  money  up  to  hundreds-of-thousands  of  dollars.  Bostford  made 
a  big  sale  and  started  from  Pithole  to  deposit  his  money.  A  cross-country  trip 
was  necessary  to  reach  Titusville.  Shortly  after  leaving  Pithole  he  was  attacked 


THE  DINNER 


396  SKETCHES  IN   CRUDE-OIL. 

by  robbers,  who  took  all  the  money  and  left  him  for  dead  upon  the  highway. 
He  was  picked  up  alive,  with  a  broken  head  and  many  other  injuries,  which  he 
survived  thirty  years. 

"French  Kate,"  the  woman  who  aided  Ben  Hogan  at  Pithole  and  fol- 
lowed him  to  Babylon  and  Parker,  was  a  Confederate  spy  and  supposed  to  be 
very  friendly  with  J.  Wilkes  Booth.  Besides  his  oil-interests  at  Franklin,  the 
slayer  of  Abraham  Lincoln  owned  a  share  in  the  Homestead  well  at  Pithole. 
A  favorite  legend  tells  how,  by  a  singular  coincidence,  which  produced  a  sensa- 
tion, the  well  was  burned  on  the  evening  of  the  President's  assassination.  It 
caught  fire  about  the  same  instant  the  fatal  bullet  was  fired  in  Ford's  Theater 
and  tanks  of  burning  oil  enveloped  Pithole  in  a  dense  smoke  when  the  news  of 
the  tragedy  flashed  over  the  trembling  wires.  The  Homestead  well  was  not 
down  until  Lincoln  had  been  dead  seven  weeks,  Pithole  had  no  existence  and 
there  were  no  blazing  tanks ;  otherwise  the  legend  is  correct.  Two  weeks 
before  his  appalling  crime  Booth  was  one  of  a  number  of  passengers  on  the 
scow  doing  duty  as  a  ferry-boat  across  the  Allegheny,  after  the  Franklin  bridge 
had  burned.  The  day  was  damp  and  the  water  very  cold.  Some  inhuman 
whelp  threw  a  fine  setter  into  the  river.  The  poor  beast  swam  to  the  rear  of 
the  scow  and  Booth  pulled  him  on  board.  He  caressed  the  dog  and  bitterly 
denounced  the  fellow  who  could  treat  a  dumb  animal  so  cruelly.  At  another 
time  he  knocked  down  a  cowardly  ruffian  for  beating  a  horse  that  was  unable 
to  pull  a  heavy  load  out  of  a  mud-hole.  He  has  been  known  to  shelter  stray 
kittens,  to  buy  them  milk  and  induce  his  landlady  to  care  for  them  until  they 
could  be  provided  with  a  home.  Truly  his  was  a  contradictory  nature.  He 
sympathized  with  horses,  dogs  and  cats,  yet  robbed  the  nation  of  its  illustrious 
chief  and  plunged  mankind  into  mourning.  To  newsboys  Booth  was  always 
liberal,  not  infrequently  handing  a  dollar  for  a  paper  and  saying  :  "No  change  ; 
buy  something  useful  with  the  money."  The  first  time  he  went  to  the  Metho- 
dist Sunday-school,  with  "Joe"  Simonds,  he  asked  and  answered  questions 
and  put  a  ten-dollar  bill  in  the  collection-box. 

Ben  Hogan  was  one  of  the  motley  crew  that  swarmed  to  Pithole  "  broke." 
He  taught  sparring  and  gave  exhibitions  of 'strength  at  Diefenbach's  variety- 
hall.  He  fought  Jack  Holliday  for  a  purse  of  six-hundred  dollars  and  defeated 
him  in  seven  rounds.  Four-hundred  tough  men  and  tougher  women  were 
present,  many  of  them  armed.  Hogan  was  assured  before  the  fight  he  would 
be  killed  if  he  whipped  his  opponent.  He  was  shot  at  by  Marsh  Elliott  during 
the  mill,  but  escaped  unhurt.  Ben  met  Elliott  soon  thereafter  and  knocked 
him  out  in  four  brief  rounds,  breaking  his  nose  and  using  him  up  generally. 
Next  he  opened  a  palatial  sporting-house,  the  receipts  of  which  often  reached 
a  thousand  dollars  a  day.  An  adventure  of  importance  was  with  ' '  Stonehouse 
Jack."  This  desperado  and  his  gang  had  a  grudge  against  Hogan  and  con- 
cocted a  scheme  to  kill  him.  Jack  was  to  arrange  a  fight  with  Ben,  during 
which  Hogan  was  to  be  killed  by  the  crowd.  Ben  saw  his  enemy  coming  out 
of  a  dance-house  and  blazed  away  at  him,  but  without  effect.  The  fusillade 
scared  "Stonehouse  "  away  from  Pithole  and  on  January  twenty-second,  1866, 
a  vigilance  committee  at  Titusville  drove  the  villain  out  of  the  oil- region, 
threatening  to  hang  him  or  any  of  his  gang  who  dared  return.  This  committee 
was  organized  to  clear  out  a  nest  of  incendiaries  and  thugs.  The  vigilants 
erected  a  gallows  near  the  smoking  embers  of  E.  B.  Chase  &  Co.'s  general 
store,  fired  the  preceding  night,  and  decreed  the  banishment  of  hordes  of 
toughs.  "  Stonehouse  Jack  "  and  one-hundred  other  men,  with  a  number  of 


JUST  ODDS  AND  ENDS.  397 

vile  women  came  under  this  sentence.  The  whole  party  was  formed  in  line  in 
front  of  the  gallows,  the  "Rogue's  March"  was  played  and  the  procession, 
followed  by  a  great  crowd  of  people,  proceeded  to  the  Oil-Creek  Railroad 
station.  The  prisoners  were  ordered  on  board  a  special  train,  with  a  warning 
that  if  they  ever  again  set  foot  upon  the  soil  of  Titusville  they  would  be  sum- 
marily executed.  This  salutary  action  ended  organized  crime  in  the  oil-region. 

Blacklegs,  thieves  and  murderers  ran  little  risk  of  punishment  in  the  early 
days  of  oil-developments,  unless  they  became  unusually  obstreperous  and  were 
brought  to  a  period  with  a  shot-gun.  Scoundrels  lay  in  wait  for  victims  at 
every  turn  and  stories  of  their  misdeeds  could  be  told  by  the  hundred.  The 
McFate  farm  was  one  of  the  first  on  Cherry  Run  to  be  sold  at  a  fancy  price. 
S.  J.  McFate,  one  of  the  brothers  owning  the  property,  two  weeks  after  the 
sale  in  1862,  walked  down  to  Oil  City  to  draw  several-thousand  dollars  from  the 
bank.  He  displayed  the  money  freely  and  left  for  home  late  at  night.  The 
road  was  dark  and  lonely  and  next  morning,  in  a  clump  of  bushes  a  mile  above 
Oil  City,  his  lifeless  body  was  discovered.  A  ghastly  wound  in  the  head  and 
the  absence  of  the  money  explained  the  tragedy  and  the  motive.  No  clue  to 
the  murderer  was  ever  found,  although  squads  of  detectives  "worked  on  the 
case"  and  queer  fictions  regarding  the  mysterious  assassin  were  printed  in 
many  newspapers. 

John  Henderson,  a  tall,  handsome  man,  came  from  the  east  during  the  oil- 
excitement  in  Warren  county  and  located  at  Garfield.  In  a  fight  at  a  gambling- 
house  one  night  George  Harkness  was  thrown  out  of  an  upstairs-window  and 
his  neck  broken.  Foul  play  was  suspected,  although  the  evidence  implicated  no 
one,  and  the  coroner's  jury  returned  a  verdict  of  accidental  death.  Harkness 
had  left  a  young  bride  in  Philadelphia  and  was  out  to  seek  his  fortune.  Hen- 
derson, feeling  in  a  degree  responsible  for  his  death,  began  sending  anonymous 
letters  to  the  bereaved  wife,  each  containing  fifty  to  a  hundred  dollars.  The 
letters  were  first  mailed  every  month  from  Garfield,  then  from  Bradford,  then 
from  Chicago  and  for  three  years  from  Montana.  In  1893  she  received  from 
the  writer  of  these  letters  a  request  for  an  interview.  This  was  granted,  the 
acquaintance  ripened  into  love  and  the  pair  were  married !  Henderson  is  a 
wealthy  stockman  in  Montana.  In  1867  an  English  vessel  went  to  pieces  in  a 
terrible  storm  on  the  coast  of  Maine.  The  captain  and  many  passengers  were 
drowned.  Among  the  saved  were  two  children,  the  captain's  daughters.  One 
was  adopted  by  a  merchant  of  Dover,  N.  H.  He  gave  her  a  good  education, 
she  grew  up  a  beautiful  woman  and  it  was  she  who  married  George  Harkness 
and  John  Henderson. 

In  February  of  1880  Conductor  W.  W.  Gaither,  of  the  Clarion  Narrow- 
Gauge  Railroad,  ejected  a  peddler  named  John  Clancy  from  his  train,  near 
King's  Mills,  for  refusing  to  pay  his  fare.  Clancy  shot  Gaither,  who  died  in  a 
few  days  from  the  wound.  W.  L.  Fox,  of  Foxburg,  president  of  the  road,  was 
a  warm  personal  friend  of  the  murdered  conductor.  He  took  charge  of  the 
pistol  and  became  active  in  bringing  Clancy  to  punishment.  Clancy  was  placed 
on  trial  at  Clarion.  President  Fox  was  to  produce  the  pistol  in  court.  Leav- 
ing home  on  the  early  train  for  Clarion,  he  had  proceeded  some  distance  from 
Foxburg  when  he  discovered  he  had  forgotten  the  pistol.  He  stopped  the 
train  and  ran  back  to  get  the  weapon.  When  he  returned  he  was  almost  ex- 
hausted. W.  J.  McConnell,  beside  whom  he  was  sitting,  attempted  to  revive 
him,  but  he  sank  into  unconsciousness  and  expired  in  the  car  at  the  exact  spot 
where  his  friend  Gaither  was  shot.  Clancy  was  convicted  of  murder  in  the 


398  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

second  degree  and  sentenced  to  eight  years  in  the  penitentiary.  His  wife  and 
twelve-year-old  son  were  left  destitute.  The  boy  went  to  work  for  a  farmer 
near  St.  Petersburg.  A  week  later  he  was  crossing  a  field  in  which  a  vicious 
bull  was  feeding.  The  bull  attacked  him,  ripped  his  side  open  and  tossed  him 
from  the  field  into  the  road.  The  boy  died  in  a  short  time.  Besides  these 
fatalities  resulting  from  Clancy's  crime,  the  business  of  Foxburg  was  seriously 
crippled.  The  village  depended  on  the  oil-business  of  the  Fox  estate.  W.  L. 
Fox,  although  only  twenty-nine  years  old,  was  the  manager  of  this  estate,  com- 
prising three- thousand  acres  of  oil-land,  which,  only  partially  developed,  yielded 
twenty-five-thousand  barrels  a  month.  He  owned  the  only  extensive  individual 
pipe-line  in  the  oil-region  and  at  the  time  of  his  death  was  erecting  an  im- 
mense refinery.  He  had  a  capital  of  three  millions  and  was  completing  plans 
for  the  construction  of  other  lines  of  railways,  with  Foxburg  as  their  center. 
The  refinery  was  abandoned,  the  pipe-line  was  sold  and  no  further  develop- 
ment of  the  Fox  property  was  made.  The  death  of  W.  L.  Fox  took  the  dis- 
tribution of  a  million  dollars  a  year  from  the  region  around  Foxburg.  The 
family  erected  a  splendid  church  to  his  memory,  but  it  is  seldom  used.  The 
bank  closed  its  doors  years  ago,  most  of  the  business  has  sought  other  sections 
and  the  pretty  village  is  merely  a  shadow  of  the  past. 
"  The  massive  gates  of  circumstance 

Are  turned  upon  the  smallest  hinge, 
And  thus  some  seeming  pettiest  chance 
Oft  gives  our  life  its  after  tinge." 

The  narrow-gauge  railroad  from  Foxburg  to  Clarion  was  an  engineering 
novelty.  It  zig-zagged  to  overcome  the  big  hill  at  the  start,  twisted  around 
ravines  and  crossed  gorges  on  dizzy  trestles.  Near  Clarion  was  the  highest 
and  longest  bridge,  a  wooden  structure  on  stilts,  curved  and  single-tracked. 

|p _j.mn_ii  .„.!        !•  •••^^      One  dark  night  a  drummer  employed 

by  a  Pittsburg  house  was  drawn  over 
it  safely  in  a  buggy,  r  The  horse  left 
the  wagon-road,  got  on  the  railroad- 
track,  walked  across  the  bridge — 
the  ties  supporting  the  rails  were  a 
foot  apart — and  fetched  up  at  his 
stable  about  midnight.  The  drum- 
mer, who  had  imbibed  too  freely 
and  was  fast  asleep  in  the  vehicle, 
knew  nothing  of  the  drive,  which  the 
marks  of  the  wheels  on  the  ap- 
proaches and  the  ties  revealed  next 
morning.  The  horse  kept  closely  to 
the  center  of  the  track,  while  the 
wheels  on  the  right  were  outside  the 
rails.  Had  the  faithful  animal  veered 
a  foot  to  the  right,  the  buggy  would 
have  tumbled  over  the  trestle  and 

RA.LROAD  BRIDGE  NEAR  CLARION.  there    would   have    been    a.    vacant 

chair  in  commercial    ranks    and    a 

new  voice  in  the  celestial  choir.  That  the  horse  did  not  step  between  the  ties 
and  stick  fast  was  a  wonder.  The  trip  was  as  perilous  as  the  Mohammedan  pas- 
sage to  Paradise  over  a  slack-wire  or  Blondin's  tight-rope  trip  across  Niagara. 


JUST  ODDS  AND  ENDS.  399 

The  first  railroad  to  enter  Oil  City  was  the  Atlantic  &  Great  Western,  now 
of  the  Erie  system,  in  1866.  Its  first  train  crossed  the  mouth  of  Oil  Creek  on  a 
track  laid  upon  the  ice.  "Billy"  Stevens  and  John  Babcock  were  early  con- 
ductors. Stevens  went  to  Maine  and  Babcock  died  several  years  ago  at  Mead- 
ville,  soon  after  completing  a  term  as  mayor  of  the  city.  The  Farmers'  Rail- 
road was  finished  in  1867,  the  Allegheny  Valley  in  1868  and  the  Lake-Shore  in 
1870.  A  short  railroad  up  Sage  Run  conveyed  coal  from  the  Cranberry  mines. 
On  August  fourth,  1882,  the  engineer— Frank  Wright— lost  control  of  a  train  on 
the  down  grade,  one  of  the  steepest  in  the  state.  He  reversed  the  engine  to 
the  last  notch  and  jumped,  sustaining  injuries  that  caused  his  death  in  four  days. 
For  two  miles  the  track  was  torn  up  and  coal-cars  were  smashed  to  splinters  by 
running  into  a  train  of  freight-cars  at  McAlevy's  Mills.  Six  men  were  killed 
outright  and  five  died  from  their  injuries  next  day. 

The  popular  auditor  of  the  New  York  Central,  W.  F.  McCullough,  was  an 
Oil-City  boy.  His  brother,  James  McCullough,  is  traveling-auditor  of  the  New 
York,  New  Haven  &  Hartford  ;  another  brother,  E.  M.  McCullough,  is  travel- 
ing bill-agent  for  the  U.  S.  Steamship-Railway  Company.  They  are  sons  of  the 
late  Dr.  T.  C.  McCullough,  who  died  at  Oil  City  in  1896. 

Hon.  Thomas  Struthers,  of  Warren,  who  died  in  1892  at  the  age  of  eighty- 
nine,  donated  the  town  a  public-library  building  that  cost  ninety-thousand 
dollars.  He  aided  in  constructing  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad,  built  sections  of 
the  Philadelphia  &  Erie  and  Oil-Creek  Railroads  and  the  first  railroad  in  Cali- 
fornia. He  was  the  first  manager  of  the  Oil-Creek  road.  Frank  Thomson) 
now  first  vice-president  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad,  was  also  superintendent 
of  the  Oil-Creek.  C.  J.  Hepburn,  now  residing  at  Sunbury  and  permanently 
disabled  as  the  result  of  an  accident,  held  the  same  position  for  years.  He  was 
a  thorough  railroader,  esteemed  alike  by  the  employes  and  the  public  for  his 
efficient  performance  of  duty.  The  old-time  Oil-Creek  conductors  were  lock- 
switch,  steel-track  and  rock-ballast  clear  through.  Gleason,  postmaster  at  Corry 
a  term  or  two,  runs  the  Mansion  House  at  Titusville.  "  Bill "  Miller  is  on  the 
Pacific  coast.  Mack  Dobbins  died  at  St.  Louis  and  "  By"  Taylor  has  made 
his  last  trip.  Barber  lives  at  Buffalo.  "Mike"  Silk,  who  yanked  oil-trains 
from  Cherry  Run,  is  a  wealthy  citizen  of  Warren.  Selden  Stone  and  "  Pap  " 
Richards  are  still  on  deck,  the  last  of  a  coterie  of  as  white  railroad-men  as  ever 
punched  pasteboard. 

"Never  quarrel  with  a  preacher  or  an  editor,"  said  Henry  Clay,  "for  the 
one  can  slap  you  from  the  pulpit  and  the  other  hit  you  in  his  paper  without 
your  getting  a  chance  to  strike  back."  Col.  William  Phillips,  president  of  the 
Allegheny-Valley  Railroad,  violated  the  Kentucky  statesman's  wise  maxim  by 
making  war  on  the  Oil-City  Derrick.  He  was  building  the  Low-Grade  divi- 
sion, from  Red  Bank  to  Emporium,  and  the  main-line  suffered.  The  track  was 
neglected,  decayed  ties  and  broken  rails  were  common  and  accidents  occurred 
too  frequently  for  comfort.  The  winter  and  spring  of  1873  were  fruitful  of  dis- 
aster. At  Rockland  an  oil-train  ran  over  the  steep  bank  into  the  river,  upset- 
ting the  passenger-coach  at  the  rear.  The  oil  caught  fire,  several  passengers 
were  burned  to  death  and  others  were  terribly  injured.  The  railroad  officials, 
acting  under  orders  from  headquarters,  refused  to  give  information  to  the  crowd 
of  frantic  people  who  besieged  the  office  at  Oil  City  to  learn  the  fate  of  friends 
on  the  train.  To  the  last  moment  they  denied  that  anything  serious  had  hap- 
pened, although  passengers  able  to  walk  to  Rockland  Station  telegraphed  brief 
particulars.  At  last  a  train  bearing  some  of  the  injured  reached  Oil  City.  Next 


400  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

morning  the  Derrick  gave  full  details  and  criticised  the  management  of  the 
road  severely  for  the  bad  condition  of  the  track  and  the  stupid  attempt  to  with- 
hold information.  The  heading  of  the  article— "  Hell  Afloat  "—enraged  Col. 
Phillips.  He  and  Superintendent  J.  J.  Lawrence  prepared  a  circular  to  the  con- 
ductors, instructing  them  "to  take  up  pass  of  C.  E.  Bishop  or  J.  J.  McLaurin 
whenever  presented,  collect  full  fare,  prohibit  newsboys  from  selling  the  Oil- 
City  Derrick  on  the  trains,  not  allow  the  paper  to  be  carried  except  in  the  mails 
or  as  express-matter,  and  to  report  to  the  General  Superintendent. "  Conductor 
Wench,  a  pleasant,  genial  fellow,  on  my  next  trip  from  Parker  looked  per- 
plexed as  he  greeted  me.  He  hesitated,  walked  past,  returned  in  a  few  mo- 
ments and  asked  to  see  my  pass.  The  document  was  produced,  he  drew  a 
letter  from  his  pocket  and  showed  it  to  me.  It  was  the  order  signed  by  Phil- 
lips and  Lawrence.  "That's  clear  enough,  here's  your  fare,"  was  my  rejoinder. 
It  was  agreed  at  the  office  to  say  nothing  for  a  day  or  two.  Doubtless  Phil- 
lips and  Lawrence  thought  the  paper  had  been  scared  and  would  send  a  flag  of 
truce.  A  big  wreck  afforded  the  opportunity  to  open  hostilities.  For  months 
the  war  raged.  The  paper  had  a  regular  heading — "  Another  Accident  on  the 
Valley  of  the  Shadow  Road  " — which  was  printed  every  morning.  Accidents 
multiplied  and  travel  sought  other  lines.  Phillips  threatened  to  remove  the 
shops  from  South  Oil  City,  his  partners  wished  Bishop  to  let  up,  he  refused  and 
they  bought  his  interest.  Peace  was  proclaimed,  the  road  was  put  into  decent 
order  and  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  eventually  secured  it.  The  fight  had  no 
end  of  comical  features.  It  worried  Col.  Phillips  exceedingly  and  spread  the 
reputation  of  the  Derrick  over  the  continent.  The  cruel  war  is  over  and  Col. 
Phillips  and  Col.  Lawrence  journeyed  to  the  tomb  long  years  ago. 

"Jim"  Collins— he  ought  to  be  manager— is  about  the  only  one  of  the 
early  conductors  on  the  Allegheny- Valley  Railroad  still  in  the  traces.  His 
record  of  twenty-seven  years  shows  capable,  faithful  attention  to  duty  and  care 
for  the  comfort  and  safety  of  passengers  that  has  gained  him  the  highest  popu- 
larity. Superintendent  "Tom  "  King,  now  vice-president  of  the  Baltimore  & 
Ohio,  is  among  the  foremost  railroad-officials  of  the  United  States.  His  brother 
was  crushed  to  death  by  the  cars.  Wench,  the  Taylors,  Reynolds  and  Bonar 
have  been  off  the  road  many  years.  Long  trains  of  crude  are  also  missing, 
some  towns  along  the  route  have  disappeared  and  the  crowds  of  operators  who 
formerly  thronged  the  line  between  Parker  and  Oil  City  have  vanished  from 
the  scene. 

The  United-States  Pipe-Line  has  overcome  legal  obstructions,  laid  its  tubes 
under  railroads  that  objected  to  its  passage  to  the  sea  and  will  soon  pump  oil 
direct  to  refineries  on  the  Jersey  coast.  Senator  Emery,  the  sponsor  of  the 
line,  is  not  the  man  to  be  bluffed  by  any  railroad-popinjay  who  wants  him  to 
get  off  the  earth.  The  National-Transit  Line  has  ample  facilities  to  transport 
all  the  oil  in  Pennsylvania  to  the  seaboard,  but  Emery  is  a  true  descendant  of 
the  proud  Highlander  who  wouldn't  sail  in  Noah's  ark  because  "ilka  McLean 
has  a  boat  o'  hisain." 

"Hell  in  harness!"  Davy  Crockett  is  credited  with  exclaiming  the  first 
time  he  saw  a  railroad-train  tearing  along  one  dark  night.  Could  he  have  seen 
an  oil-train  on  the  Oil-Creek  Railroad,  blazing  from  end  to  end  and  tearing 
down  from  Brocton  at  sixty  miles  an  hour,  the  conception  would  have  been  yet 
more  realistic.  Engineer  Brown  held  the  throttle,  which  he  pulled  wide  open 
upon  discovering  a  car  of  crude  on  fire.  Mile  after  mile  he  sped  on,  thick 
smoke  and  sheets  of  flame  each  moment  growing  denser  and  fiercer.  At  last 


JUST  ODDS  AND  ENDS.  4or 

he  reached  a  long  siding,  slackened  the  speed  for  the  fireman  to  open  the 
switch  and  ran  the  doomed  train  off  the  main  track.  .He  detached  the  engine 
and  two  cars,  while  the  rest  of  the  train  fell  a  prey  to  the  fiery  demon.  A 
similar  accident  at  Bradford,  caused  by  a  tank  at  the  Anchor  Oil-Company's 
wells  overflowing  upon  the  tracks  of  the  Bradford  &  Bordell  narrow-gauge, 
burned  two  or  three  persons  fatally.  The  oil  caught  fire  as  the  locomotive 
passed  the  spot  and  enveloped  the  passenger-coach  in  flames  so  quickly  that 
•escape  was  cut  off. 

Do  any  of  the  pioneers  on  Kanawha  remember  "  Dick  "  Timms's  Half-way 
House  ?  The  weather-beaten  sign  bore  the  legend,  in  faded  letters  :  "  Rest  for 
the  Weary.  R.  Timms."  The  exterior  was  rough  and  unpainted,  but  inside 
was  cheery  and  homelike  in  its  snugness.  When  travelers  rode  up  to  the  door 
"  Uncle  Dick,"  in  full  uniform  of  shirt  and  pantaloons,  barefooted  and  hatless, 
rough  and  uncouth  in  speech  and  appearance,  but  with  a  heart  so  big  that  it 
made  his  fat  body  bulge  and  his  whole  face  light  up  with  a  cheerful  smile, 
stood  ready  with  his  welcome  salutation  of  "  Howdy,  howdy  ?  'Light;  come  in." 

Fifteen-thousand  wells  that  produced  oil  and  forty- five-hundred  dry-holes 
have  been  drilled  in  Ohio.  The  average  daily  yield  of  the  wells  now  produc- 
ing is  four  barrels.  The  oil  is  inferior  and  sells  at  a  trifle  above  half  the  price 
of  Pennsylvania  crude.  The  Indiana  oil-region  is  a  level  country,  about  forty 
miles  long  east  and  west  and  three  to  four  wide.  The  oil,  dark  green  in  color 
and  thirty-six  gravity,  is  found  in  the  Trenton  limestone,  at  a  depth  of  a  thou- 
sand feet.  Thirty  to  a  hundred  feet  of  driving-pipe  and  three-hundred  feet  of 
casing  are  needed  in  each  well.  The  main  belt  runs  in  regular  pools  and  may 
be  considered  ten-barrel  territory.  The  aggregate  production  of  the  field  is 
ten  to  twelve-thousand  barrels  a  day.  The  largest  well  started  at  two-thousand 
barrels  and  some  have  records  of  five-hundred  to  eight-hundred.  The  great 
gas-field,  south  of  the  oil-belt,  has  boomed  manufactures  and  contributed  vastly 
to  the  wealth  of  the  Hoosiers.  Of  sixty-one-thousand  wells  put  down  in  the 
United  States  since  1880  dawned  fully  nine-thousand  were  dry-holes.  One  Oil- 
City  broker's  customers  lost  four-million  dollars  in  a  year  by  staying  on  the 
wrong  side  of  the  market.  Speculation  and  over-production  played  strong 
hands  in  the  attempt  to  bankrupt  the  oil-business  permanently,  but  the  former 
is  dead  and  the  latter  can  be  taken  care  of  should  rich  fields  happen  to  come  in 
suddenly.  The  pathway  of  the  oil-producer  has  not  always  been  strewn  with 
flowers,  yet  he  has  kept  up  his  courage  and  striven  hard  to  land  on  Easy 
Street.  No  part  of  the  country  to-day  is  so  prosperous  as  the  oil-region.  The 
boys  can  wear  diamonds  when  they  want  to  do  a  turn  in  the  social  swim.  Yet 
they  don't  turn  up  their  noses  and  claim  that  the  Lord  made  them  out  of 
whole  <:loth  and  the  rest  of  mankind  out  of  the  leavings. 

.  J.  W.  Stewart,  of  Clarion,  is  in  Africa  drilling  for  oil.  An  English  syndi- 
cate is  behind  the  enterprise  and  test-wells  are  to  be  drilled  in  the  gold-fields 
on  the  southern  coast.  Stewart  writes  that  it  is  amusing  to  see  the  monkeys 
climb  up  a  derrick  and  watch  the  drillers  at  work.  Just  how  amused  they  will 
"be,  if  Stewart  strikes  a  spouter  that  drenches  the  monkeys  and  the  derrick, 
each  must  diagram  for  himself  until  the  result  of  carrying  the  petroleum-war 
into  Africa  is  decided. 

Alas  for  sentiment !  Nero  proves  to  have  been  a  humanitarian,  a  good 
man  who  was  merely  a  bad  fiddler.  Henry  the  Eighth  turns  out  to  be  a  model 
husband,  rather  unfortunate  in  the  loss  of  wives,  but  sweetly  indulgent  and 
only  a  trifle  given  to  fall  in  love  with  pretty  girls.  William  Tell  had  no  son 


402  SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 

and  shot  no  arrow  at  an  apple  on  young  TelPs  head.  Now  Charlotte  Temple 
is  a  myth,  the  creation  .of  an  English  novelist,  with  her  name  cut  on  a  flat 
tombstone  in  Trinity  Churchyard  over  a  grave  which  originally  bore  a  metal- 
plate  supposed  to  commemorate  a  man  !  At  this  rate  some  historic  sharp  in 
the  future  may  demonstrate  that  the  oil-men  were  a  race  of  green-tinted  people 
governed  by  King  Petroleum.  Colonel  Drake  may  be  pronounced  a  figure  of 
the  imagination,  the  Standard  a  fiction,  the  South-Improvement  Company  a 
nightmare  and  the  Producers'  Association  a  dream.  Then  some  inquisitive 
antiquarian  may  come  across  a  copy  of  "Sketches  in  Crude-Oil  "  stored  in  a 
forgotten  corner  of  the  Congressional  Library,  and  set  them  all  right  and  keep 
the  world  running  in  the  correct  groove  with  regard  to  the  grand  industry  of 
the  nineteenth  century. 

The  Salt-Creek  oil-field,  the  first  worked  in  Wyoming,  is  in  the  northern 
part  of  Natrona  and  the  southern  part  of  Johnson  county,  fifty  miles  north  of 
Casper,  the  terminus  of  the  Fremont,  Elkhorn  &  Missouri  Valley  Railroad.  As 
known  to-day  the  field  is  eighteen  by  thirty  miles.  It  lies  along  Salt  Creek 
and  its  tributaries,  which  drain  northward  and  empty  into  Powder  River,  and 
is  a  rough  country,  cut  by  deep  gulches,  beneath  which  there  are  table-lands  of 
small  extent.  Vegetation  is  scanty  and  timber  is  found  only  on  the  highest 
bluffs.  In  1889  the  Pennsylvania  Oil-Company,  composed  of  Pennsylvanians 
and  under  the  management  of  George  B.  McCalmont,  located  on  Salt  Creek 
and  drilled  a  well  which,  early  in  the  spring  of  1890,  struck  oil.  Obstacles  of 
no  small  magnitude  were  met  with.  The  oil  had  to  be  freighted  fifty  miles  by 
wagon ;  railroad-freights  were  controlled  by  eastern  oil-producers  and  rates 
that  would  allow  shipment  seemed  almost  impossible,  and  the  oil  had  to  be 
proved  before  it  could  be  placed  upon  the  market  in  competition  with  well- 
known  brands.  In  the  face  of  these  difficulties  the  company  continued  work 
and  in  the  spring  of  1894  succeeded  in  making  arrangements  to  ship  crude-oil. 
Storage-tanks  were  erected  at  the  wells  and  at  the  railroad  and  a  refinery  is 
now  in  operation  at  Casper.  The  wells  vary  in  depth  from  nine-hundred  to- 
fifteen-hundred  feet  and  three  companies  are  operating.  The  oil  is  a  valuable 
lubricant.  The  transportation  of  the  oil  to  the  railroad  is  effected  in  freight- 
wagons  of  the  ordinary  sort.  Behind  them  is  a  fourth  wagon,  or  the  freighter's 
home,  which  has  wide  boards  projecting  from  the  sides  of  the  wagon-box  over 
the  wheels,  making  a  box  of  unusual  width  covered  with  heavy  canvas  over 
the  ordinary  wagon-bows  and  provided  with  a  window  in  the  back,  a  door  in 
front,  a  bed,  cook-stove,  table,  cupboard  and  the  necessary  equipment  for 
keeping  house.  In  this  house  on  wheels  the  freighter  passes  the  night  and  in 
breaking  camp  he  is  not  bothered  with  his  camp-outfit.  This  novelty  has  been 
recently  introduced  by  Mr.  Johnson,  the  leading  freighter  for  the  Pennsylvania 
Company.  With  sixteen  mules  he  draws  his  four  wagons  with  nine  tons  of  oil, 
over  a  very  sandy  road. 

John  G.  Saxe  once  lectured  at  Pithole  and  was  so  pleased  with  the  people 
and  place  that  he  donated  twenty-five  dollars  to  the  charity-fund  and  wrote 
columns  of  descriptive  matter  to  a  Boston  newspaper.  "  If  I  were  not  Alexan- 
der I  would  be  Diogenes,"  said  the  Macedonian  conqueror.  Similarly  Henry 
Ward  Beecher  remarked,  when  he  visited  Oil  City  to  lecture,  "  If  I  were  not 
pastor  of  Plymouth  church  I  would  be  paster  of  an  Oil-City  church."  The 
train  conveying  Dom  Pedro,  Emperor  of  Brazil,  through  the  oil-region  stopped 
at  Foxburg  to  afford  the  imperial  guest  an  opportunity  to  see  an  oil-well  tor- 
pedoed. He  watched  the  filling  of  the  shell  with  manifest  interest,  dropped! 


JUST  ODDS  AND  ENDS.  403 

the  weight  after  the  torpedo  had  been  lowered  and  clapped  his  hands  when  a 
column  of  oil  rose  in  the  air.  An  irreverent  spectator  whispered  :  "  This  beats 
playing  pedro." 

Daniel  Fisher,  ex-mayor  of  Oil  City  and  chief  of  the  fire-department, 
donned  a  new  suit  one  day  when  oil-tanks  abounded  in  the  Third  Ward.  Hear- 
ing a  cry  of  distress,  he  mounted  a  tank  and  saw  a  man  lying  on  the  bottom,  in 
a  foot  of  thick  oil.  He  dropped  through  the  hatchway,  pulled  up  the  victim 
of  gas  and  with  great  difficulty  dragged  him  up  the  small  ladder  into  the  fresh 
air.  Of  course,  the  new  clothes  were  spoiled  beyond  hope  of  redemption. 
The  man  revived,  said  his  name  was  Green,  that  he  earned  a  living  by  clean- 
ing out  tank-bottoms  and  was  thus  employed  when  overcome  by  gas.  Next 
day  Fisher  met  Green,  who  thanked  him  again  for  saving  his  life,  borrowed 
ten  dollars  and  never  repaid  the  loan  or  offered  to  set  up  a  new  suit  of  clothes. 

"  Brudders  an'  sistern,"  ejaculated  a  colored  preacher,  "ef  we  knowed 
how  much  de  good  Lawd  knows  about  us  it  wud  skeer  us  mos'  to  deff."  A 
Franklin  preacher  once  seemed  to  forget  that  the  Lord  was  posted  concerning 
earthly  affairs,  as  he  prayed  thirty-six  minutes  at  the  exercises  on  Memorial 
Day.  The  sun  beat  down  upon  the  bare  heads  of  the  assembled  multitude, 
but  the  divine  prayed  right  along  from  Plymouth  Rock  to  the  close  of  the  war. 
Col.  J.  S.  Myers,  the  veteran  lawyer,  presided.  Great  drops  of  perspiration 
rolled  down  his  face,  but  he  was  like  the  henpecked  husband  who  couldn't  get 
away  and  had  to  grin  and  bear  it.  He  summed  up  the  situation  in  a  sen- 
tence :  "  I  think  ministers  ought  to  take  it  for  granted  that  the  Almighty  knows 
enough  American  history  to  get  along  nicely  without  having  it  prayed  at  Him 
by  the  hour!" 

Philo  M.  Clark  built  an  inclined  railroad  up  a  hill  at  Oil  City,  known  as 
Clark's  Summit,  designing  to  lay  out  a  residence-suburb  on  the  stretch  of  flat 
land  that  overlooked  the  country  for  miles.  A  race  track  was  constructed  and 
a  crowd  gathered  one  afternoon  to  witness  an  exhibition  of  speed.  Just  as  the 
horses  started  in  a  running-race  Wesley  Chambers  rode  up  on  a  mustang.  The 
mustang  had  been  a  racer  himself  and  he  dashed  upon  the  track.  The  others 
had  a  big  start,  but  the  mustang  closed  the  gap  and  passed  under  the  wire  first, 
in  spite  of  his  rider's  efforts  to  rein  him  in.  The  yells  of  the  crowd  were  heard 
clear  to  Franklin. 

Judge  Trunkey,  who  presided  over  the  Venango  court  a  dozen  years  and 
was  then  elected  to  the  Supreme  Bench,  was  nearing  a  case  of  desertion.  An 
Oil-City  lawyer,  proud  of  his  glossy  black  beard,  represented  the  forsaken  wife, 
a  comely  young  woman  from  Petroleum  Centre,  who  dandled  a  bright  baby  of 
twenty  months  on  her  knee.  Mother  and  baby  formed  a  pretty  picture  and  the 
lawyer  took  full  advantage  of  it  in  his  closing  appeal  to  the  jury.  At  a  brilliant 
climax  he  turned  to  his  client  and  said  :  "  Let  me  have  the  child  !"  He  was 
raising  it  to  his  arms,  to  hold  before  the  men  in  the  box  and  describe  the  hein- 
ous meanness  of  the  wretch  who  could  leave  such  beauty  and  innocence  to 
starve.  The  baby  spoiled  the  fun  by  springing  up,  clutching  the  attorney's 
beard  and  screaming:  "Oh,  papa!"  The  audience  fairly  shrieked.  Judge 
Trunkey  laughed  until  the  tears  flowed  and  it  was  five  minutes  before  order 
could  be  restored.  That  ended  the  oratory  and  the  jury  salted  the  defendant 
handsomely.  Hon.  James  S.  Connelly,  an  Associate  Judge,  who  now  resides  in 
Philadelphia  and  enjoys  his  well-earned  fortune,  was  also  on  the  bench  at  the 
moment.  Judge  Trunkey,  one  of  the  purest,  noblest  men  and  greatest  jurists 
that  ever  shed  lustre  upon  Pennsylvania,  passed  to  his  reward  six  years  ago. 


404 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


Colorado  counts  confidently  on  a  production  sufficient  to  give  the  Cen- 
tennial State  a  solid  reputation  for  oil.  Wyoming  is  blossoming  into  promi- 
nence as  a  prospective  source  of  supply.  The  Pennsylvania  Oil  and  Gas  Com- 
pany has  tested  a  wide  area  and  is  drilling  a  number  of  wells.  The  product  is 
transported  in  heavy  wagons,  drawn  by  eight,  twelve  or  sixteen  horses,  but  the 
construction  of  pipe-lines  will  soon  supplant  this  ponderous  system.  P.  M. 
Shannon  is  president  of  the  company  and  Judge  McCalmont— known  all  over 
Venango,  Butler  and  McKean  counties  as  "Barney"— is  second  in  command. 
Kansas  has  promising  fields,  opened  in  1894  by  Guffey  &  Galey,  who  sold  to 
the  Standard  Oil-Company.  One  of  its  branch-companies  is  drilling  twenty 
wells  a  month  and  a  refinery  has  been  erected.  California  is  not  confined  to 
gold-mines,  mammoth  trees  and  luscious  fruits.  For  years  developments  have 


OIL-WELLS  AT  LOS  ANGELES,   CALIFORNIA. 

been  carried  on,  centering  finally  at  Los  Angeles.  City-lots  are  punctured 
with  holes  and  three-hundred  wells  have  been  drilled  on  two-hundred  acres. 
Samuel  M.  Jones,  formerly  of  the  Pennsylvania  oil-region  and  now  president  of 
the  Acme  Sucker-Rod  Company  of  Toledo,  leveled  his  kodak  at  the  Los  An- 
geles wells  in  1895,  securing  the  view  printed  in  the  cut.  Hon.  W.  L.  Hardison, 
who  operated  in  the  Clarion  and  Bradford  fields  and  served  a  couple  of  terms 
in  the  Legislature,  has  been  largely  interested  in  the  California  field  for  ten 
years.  Los  Angeles  wells  are  seven  to  nine-hundred  feet  deep,  yield  six  bar- 
rels to  seventy-five  at  the  start  and  employ  six-hundred  men.  The  oil  is  used 
for  fuel-and  lubrication,  produces  superior  asphaltum  and  a  distillate  for  stove- 
burners  and  gasoline-engines.  It  cannot  be  refined  profitably  for  illuminating 
purposes.  Thus  the  Occident  and  the  Orient  clasp  hands  in  the  petroleum- 
column.  ->' 

Los  Angeles  is  a  genuine  California  town,  with  oil-wells  as  an  extra  feature. 
Derricks  cluster  on  Belmont  Hill,  State  street,  Lakeshore  avenue,  Second  street 


JUST  ODDS  AND  ENDS.  405 

and  leading  thoroughfares.  A  six-inch  line  conveys  crude  to  the  railroads  and 
car-tanks  are  shipped  over  the  Southern  Pacific  and  Santa  Fe  routes.  At  least 
one  of  the  preachers  seems  to  be  drilling  "  on  the  belt,"  if  a  tourist's  tale  of  a 
prayer  he  offered  be  true.  Here  it  is  : 

"  O,  Lord !  we  pray  that  the  excursion  train  going  east  this  morning  may  not  run  off  the 
track  and  kill  any  church-members  that  may  be  on  board.  Thou  knowest  it  is  bad  enough  to 
run  oil-wells  on  Sunday,  but  worse  to  run  Sunday  excursions.  Church-members  on  Sunday 
excursions  are  not  in  condition  to  die.  Inadditiontothis.it  is  embarrassing  to  a  minister  to 
officiate  at  a  funeral  of  a  member  of  the  church  who  has  been  killed  on  a  Sunday  excursion. 
Keep  the  train  on  the  track  and  preserve  it  from  any  calamity,  that  all  church-members  among 
the  excursionists  may  have  opportunity  for  repentance,  that  their  sins  may  be  forgiven.  We  ask 
it  for  Christ's  sake.  Amen." 

A  thief  broke  into  a  Bradford  store  and  pilfered  the  cash-drawer.  Some 
months  later  the  merchant  received  an  unsigned  letter,  containing  a  ten-dollar 
bill  and  this  explanatory  note  :  "I  stole  seventy-eight  dollars  from  your  money- 
drawer.  Remorse  gnaws  at  my  conscience.  When  remorse  gnaws  again  I  will 
send  you  some  more." 

It  is  not  surprising  that  evil  travels  faster  than  good,  since  it  takes  only  two 
seconds  to  fight  a  duel  and  two  months  to  drill  an  oil-well. 

>  D.  A.  Dennison,  the  lively  editor  of  the  Bradford  Era,  is  rarely  vanquished 
in  any  sort  of  encounter.  A  "sweet-girl  graduate  "  wrote  a  story  and  wanted 
him  to  print  it.  Thinking  to  let  her  down  gently,  he  remarked:  "Your  ro- 
mance suits  me  splendidly,  but  it  has  trivial  faults.  For  instance,  you  describe 
the  heroine's  canary  as  drinking  water  by  'lapping  it  up  eagerly  with  her 
tongue.'  Isn't  that  a  peculiar  way  for  a  canary  to  drink  water?"  "  Your  criti- 
cism surprises  me,"  said  the  blushing  girl  in  a  pained  voice.  "Still,  if  you 
think  your  readers  would  prefer  it,  perhaps  it  would  be  better  to  let  the  canary 
drink  water  with  a  teaspoon."  Dennison  wilted  like  an  ice-cream  in  July, 
promised  to  publish  the  story  and  the  girl  walked  away  mistress  of  the  situation. 

"The  Producers'  Consolidated  Land  and  Petroleum  Company,"  the  for- 
midable title  over  the  Bradford  office  of  the  big  corporation,  is  apt  to  suggest 
to  observant  readers  the  days  of  old  long  sign. 

Seventy-five  years  ago  an  honest  German  erected  the  first  house  on  what 
was  to  be  part  of  a  village  in  Clarion  county.  His  name  was  a  combination 
which  in  English  meant  dog  and  town.  In  the  course  of  years  other  settlers 
arrived  and  a  little  hamlet  arose,  which  naturally  came  to  be  called  Dogtown 
in  honor  of  the  original  pioneer.  Among  the  early  villagers  was  R.  Monroe, 
for  whom  the  place  was  for  a  time  termed  Monroeville.  But  euphonious  Dog- 
town  suited  the  expressive  vernacular  of  the  oilmen,  after  whose  advent  the  old 
title  held  undisputed  sway,  leaving  Monroeville  to  rust  as  a  memory  of  the  past 
and  Dogtown  to  go  to  the  dogs  eventually. 

A  dry-joke  tickles  and  a  dry-hole  scrunches.  It's  a  poor  mule  won't  work 
both  ways,  a  poor  spouter  that  can't  keep  its  owner  from  going  up  the  spout,  a 
poor  boil  in  the  pot  that  isn't  better  than  a  boil  on  the  neck,  a  poor  chestnut  on 
the  tree  that  doesn't  beat  a  chestnut  at  a  minstrel-show  and  a  poor  seed  that 
produces  no  root  or  herb  or  grain  or  fruit  or  flower.  "Who  made  you  ?"  the 
Sunday-school  teacher  asked  a  ragged  urchin.  "  Made  me?  Well,  God  made 
me  afoot  long  and  I  growed  the  rest !"  And  so  the  early  operators  on  Oil 
Creek  made  the  oil-development ' '  a  foot  long' '  and  it  ' '  growed  the  rest. ' '  The 
tiny  seed  is  a  vigorous  plant,  the  puling  babe  a  lusty  giant.  Amid  lights  and 
shadows,  clouds  and  sunshine,  successes  and  failures,  struggles  and  triumphs, 
starless  nights  and  radiant  days,  petroleum  has  moved  ahead  steadily.  Growth, 
"creation  by  law,"  is  ever  going  on  in  the  healthy  plant,  the  tree,  the  animal, 


4o6 


SKETCHES  IN  CRUDE-OIL. 


the  mind,  the  universe.  We  must  go  forward  if  the  acorn  is  to  become  an  oak, 
the  infant  a  mature  man,  the  feeble  industry  a  sturdy  development.  Progress 
implies  more  of  Evolution  than  of  evolution,  just  as  the  oak  contains  much 
that  was  not  in  the  acorn,  and  the  oil-business  in  1896  possesses  elements  un- 
known in  1859.  Not  to  advance  is  to  go  backward  in  religion,  in  nature  and  in 
trade.  "An  absentee  God,  sitting  idle  ever  since  the  first  Sabbath,  on  the  out- 
side of  the  universe,  and  seeing  it  go,"  is  not  a  correct  idea  of  the  All-Wise 
Being,  working  actively  in  every  point  of  space  and  moment  of  time.  Stagna- 
tion means  decay  in  the  natural  world  and  death  in  oil-affairs.  The  man  who 
sits  in  the  pasture  waiting  fur  the  cow  to  come  and  be  milked  will  never  skim 
off  the  cream.  The  man  who  wants  to  figure  as  an  oil-operator  must  bounce 
the  drill  and  tap  the  sand  and  give  the  stuff  a  chance  to  get  into  the  tanks. 
Still  a  youngster  in  years,  the  petroleum-colt  has  distanced  the  old  nags.  The 
sucker-rod  is  the  pole  that  knocks  the  persimmons.  The  oil-well  is  the  foun- 
tain of  universal  illumination.  The  walking-beam  is  the  real  balance  of  trade 
and  of  power.  The  derrick  is  the  badge  of  enlightenment.  Petroleum  is  the 
bright  star  that  shines  for  all  mankind  and  doesn't  propose  to  be  snuffed  out  or 
shoved  off  the  grass.  Its  past  is  known,  its  present  may  be  estimated,  but 
what  Canute  dare  fence  in  its  future  and  say  :  "  Thus  far  shall  thou  come  and 
no  farther?" 

If  there  be  friendly  readers,  as  they  reckon  up  the  score, 
Who  find  these  random  "  Sketches  "  not  a  burden  and  a  bore 
Too  heavy  for  digestion  and  too  light  for  solemn  lore — 
Who  find  a  grain  of  pleasure  has  been  added  to  their  store 
By  some  glad  reminiscence  of  the  palmy  days  of  yore, 
Or  tender  recollection  of  the  old  friends  gone  before — 
Who  find  some  things  to  cherish  and  but  little  to  deplore — 
Good-bye,  our  voyage  ended,  we  must  anchor  on  the  shore. 
The  last  line  has  been  written,  all  the  labor  now  is  o'er, 
The  task  has  had  sweet  relish  from  the  surface  to  the  core  ; 
The  sand-rock  is  exhausted,  for  the  oil  has  drain'd  each  pore, 
The  derrick  stands  neglected  and  we  cease  to  tread  its  floor ; 
My  feet  are  on  the  threshold  and  my  hands  are  on  the  door — 
The  pen  falls  from  my  fingers,  to  be  taken  up  no  more. 


TM 


M3 

<  I 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

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